Layered Manufacturing & Additive Fabrication

Layered manufacturing (LM) or rapid prototyping is a process in which a part is produced using layer?by?layer addition of the material. In LM, slicing of the CAD model of a part to be produced is one of the important steps. Slicing of CAD model with a very small slice thickness leads to large build time.

Additive layer manufacturing processes are utilized for fabricating, repairing, and coating of three-dimensional components by deposing metallic powder or wire through melting and re-solidification with the aid of layer-wise paths directly from CAD.

What is an example of additive layer manufacturing:

Types of additive manufacturing techniques include stereolithography for polymers, and selective laser sintering, which can use polymers such as nylon, or additive layer manufacturing metals including steel, titanium and other alloys.