Advantages and drawbacks of additive manufacturing

Abstract

This paper presents some various imperfections that can occur during Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) and their effects on part quality. Direct Metal Laser Sintering is one of the Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies that enables fast production of an accurate, functional, complex shape parts and tools, without additional tooling, directly from 3D CAD model. This process is based on layer by layer manufacturing, where the fusion of the metal powder is performed by selective melting with laser beam. The laser beam moves and scans area that correspond to section of the part for the specific layer. In the DMLS the part is built layer by layer, where the process of the melting and solidification occur in small volume in relatively short time. Thanks to this kind of approach, the DMLS has much less limitations than the subtractive methods of part production. However, the production in the layers has some drawbacks, which can have a significantly influence on the part geometry, structural errors and part imperfections. Some of the advantages as well and drawback of the DMLS of metal parts has been presented in this paper.