A Review on 4D Printing—the Next Industrial Revolution

Abstract

Additive manufacturing is initially developed to meet the needs in the field of aerospace engineering. As the cost of sending a component into the space to replace the failed part is more than the actual cost of the product the researchers started working on printing machines. This effort of the researchers and research organization bought a 3D printing machine into the picture. Taking the 3D model as reference, the 3D printing machine prints the component by adding the material in layers. Later, the application of 3D printing was extended in many fields like medicine, automobile, and textile industry. Taking a step forward, a private research organization in Cambridge, Massachusetts institute of technology (MIT), has developed a 4D printing machine in 2013. 4D printing is printing a 3D component with smart material to add a fourth dimension called intelligence. Hence, this gave rise to programmable printing. This paper deals with 4D printing technology, materials suitable for printing the component, materials that add strength to the component, applications, challenges, and future scope.