In recent years, Additive Manufacturing (AM), also called 3D printing, has been expanding into several industrial sectors due to the technology providing opportunities in terms of improved functionality, productivity, and competitiveness. While metal AM technologies have almost unlimited potential, and the range of applications has increased in recent years, industries have faced challenges in the adoption of these technologies and coping with a turbulent market. Despite the extensive work that has been completed on the properties of metal AM materials, there is still a need of a robust understanding of processes, challenges, application-specific needs, and considerations associated with these technologies. Therefore, the goal of this study is to present a comprehensive review of the most common metal AM technologies, an exploration of metal AM advancements, and industrial applications for the different AM technologies across various industry sectors. This study also outlines current limitations and challenges, which prevent industries to fully benefit from the metal AM opportunities, including production volume, standards compliance, post processing, product quality, maintenance, and materials range. Overall, this paper provides a survey as the benchmark for future industrial applications and research and development projects, in order to assist industries in selecting a suitable AM technology for their application.

Special purpose machine tools (SPMs) are primarily used for performing drilling-related operations and are widely used in mass production including automotive component manufacturing. Utilization of SPM is considerably widespread; however, this technology is relatively new and expensive. The important problems facing manufacturing industries wishing to utilize this technology is feasibility analysis to decide whether a SPM can be utilised for production of the given part and if it is feasible which SPM components would be appropriate. Since the cost of utilizing SPM is high, feasibility analysis must be performed before any investment on detailed design. This paper proposes a technical feasibility analysis method which assists in deciding whether SPM is applicable for machining a given part to achieve the highest productivity. The method is based on the framework which consists of relations between the desired part properties to the characteristics of the SPM components. These relations are captured as rules and constraints in an intelligent system which is implemented in Visual Basic. Applying the proposed method to a number of industrial parts shows that it is a very useful tool in deciding when SPMs should be utilized

L. (2016). X-ray protection, surface chemistry and rheology of ball-milled submicron Gd2O3 aqueous suspension.

Special purpose machines (SPMs) are customized machine tools that perform specific machining operations in a variety of production contexts, including drilling-related operations. This research investigates the effect of optimal process parameters and SPM configuration on the machine tool selection problem versus product demand changes. A review of previous studies suggests that the application of optimization in the feasibility analysis stage of machine tool selection has received less attention by researchers. In this study, a simulated model using genetic algorithm is proposed to find the optimal process parameters and machine tool configuration. During the decision-making phase of machine tool selection, unit profit is targeted as high as possible and is given by the value of the following variables: SPM configuration selection, machining unit assignment to each operation group, and feed and cutting speed of all operations. The newly developed model generates any random chromosome characterized by feasible values for process parameters. Having shown how the problem is formulated, the research presents a case study which exemplifies the operation of the proposed model. The results show that the optimization results can provide critical information for making logical, accurate, and reliable decisions when selecting SPMs

Special purpose machine tools (SPMs) have been widely used to perform drilling-related operations in high volume production including within automotive component industries. The first step in designing and manufacturing a SPM is a feasibility analysis. Since SPMs have relatively higher investment cost than other machine tools, this task must be performed before any investment on the preparation of detailed design. The present paper explores an economic feasibility analysis strategy which aims to make logical decision by assessing the strengths and limitations of an SPM in comparison with other machine tools. The mathematical product cost model for SPMs is proposed for estimating important economic factors and then financial indicators are calculated to evaluate the SPM’s economic performance. A case study is used to examine the proposed model and results are compared with other machine tools. The proposed model provides a decision support approach for selecting an SPM for manufacturing a given part from an economic perspective