Additive manufacturing (AM) is an innovative approach to product design and fabrication
that promises to change the nature of advanced manufacturing. AM provides unprecedented design and material freedom, allowing the fabrication of components that were otherwise impossible or too expensive to make. This enables the ability to build lightweight components, consolidate assemblies, and functionally graded materials (FGM) that improve performance, lower cost, and increase quality.
Most metal feedstock materials are produced in the form of fine spherical powders used primarily in powder bed fusion (PBF), directed energy deposition (DED), binder-jetting, Metal extrusion (MEX), Material jetting (MJ) or hybrid AM processes. When compared with conventional manufacturing processes, such as casting, AM processes yield high-density parts with similar or superior strength, hardness, and fatigue properties. Porosity can affect certain material properties in metal AM parts as-fabricated, so post-processing operations, such as hot isostatic pressing (HIP) is used to close pores, just as it is used in many castings.