Additive Manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, rapid prototyping or freeform fabrication, is “the process of joining materials to make objects from 3D model data, usually layer upon layer, as opposed to subtractive manufacturing methodologies” such as machining. The term 3D printing can be defined as “the fabrication of objects through the deposition of a material using a print head, nozzle, or another printer technology.”

There are 2 main families of additive manufacturing technologies:

• Powder bed technologies
  • Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) where the metal powder is melted by a laser beam
  • Electron Beam Melting (EBM) where the metal powder is melted by an electron beam after a preheating step
  • Precision inkjet printing where the metal powder is mixed with a binder: after the printing operation, the part is consolidated by sintering
• Blown powder technologies, also known as Laser Metal Deposition or Laser cladding
  • In this process, the metal powder is blown coaxially to the laser beam which melts the particles on a base metal to form a metallurgical bond when cooled

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