The role of mechanical testing in additive manufacturing: review

Abstract

Additive Manufacturing has become a new era of manufacturing technology that goes beyond traditional subtractive manufacturing. It is based on layer-by-layer material deposition technology. Additive manufacturing technology is widely used due to its various advantages such as accurate production in a short time, required product design and complexity, easy operation, rapid prototyping, etc. It is widely used in automobile industry, oil and electric power industry, aerospace industry, biomedical applications and many more. Mechanical testing plays an important role in understanding the complex relationships between basic process parameters, defects, and the final product of the AM process. Mechanical testing such as tensile testing, fatigue testing, torsion testing, hardness and impact tests etc. are crucial to determine various performance parameters of the component of product. Owing to increasing applications of additive manufacturing in various fields it is important to analyse the components produced for their mechanical performance and hence mechanical testing plays a very important role in additive manufacturing. This paper aims to review the various mechanical testing performed in the area of additive manufacture and available published data on the mechanical properties of additively manufactured components. This paper on AM processes discusses the mechanical properties of materials and current research.