ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING RESEARCH LANDSCAPE: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

AbstractAdditive manufacturing offers several potentials such as the freedom of design, part consolidation, function integration, or time and cost-savings. These potentials make AM interesting for industries such as aerospace, automotive and medical implants, and are also seen as enables for the creation of entirely new business models. Additive manufacturing has the potential to change the current manufacturing landscape substantially and has attracted much attention of industry and academia over the last decades.However, these developments require improvements concerning the technology itself and its successful implementation into the value creation chain. Driven by the promising market opportunities and upcoming technological developments, many research activities started.This paper presents a literature review of publications from the last 20 years. Based on this analysis, the evolution of the AM research landscape is portrayed. The research landscape is organised into four areas: machine and process, material, digital process chain and methodology. The paper summarises developments in each of these areas and concludes by presenting current and discussing future research topics.