Challenges and Status on Design and Computation for Emerging Additive Manufacturing Technologies

Abstract

The revolution of additive manufacturing (AM) has led to many opportunities in fabricating complex and novel products. The increase of printable materials and the emergence of novel fabrication processes continuously expand the possibility of engineering systems in which product components are no longer limited to be single material, single scale, or single function. In fact, a paradigm shift is taking place in industry from geometry-centered usage to supporting functional demands. Consequently, engineers are expected to resolve a wide range of complex and difficult problems related to functional design. Although a higher degree of design freedom beyond geometry has been enabled by AM, there are only very few computational design approaches in this new AM-enabled domain to design objects with tailored properties and functions. The objectives of this review paper are to provide an overview of recent additive manufacturing developments and current computer-aided design methodologies that can be applied to multimaterial, multiscale, multiform, and multifunctional AM technologies. The difficulties encountered in the computational design approaches are summarized and the future development needs are emphasized. In the paper, some present applications and future trends related to additive manufacturing technologies are also discussed.

Vat-Photopolymerization-Based Ceramic Manufacturing

“…The AM revolution has brought new possibilities in designing and building objects with complex freeform surfaces ( Ref 20,21). Various AM processes were developed to overcome the difficulty of traditional manufacturing in terms of 3D fabrication, and a large range of materials, including difficult-to-process material, can now be formed into 3D shapes using AM technologies (Ref 22,23).…”

“…Various AM processes were developed to overcome the difficulty of traditional manufacturing in terms of 3D fabrication, and a large range of materials, including difficult-to-process material, can now be formed into 3D shapes using AM technologies (Ref 22,23). Due to its advantages, AM technologies have been widely used in every area of social life, such as aerospace, biomedical engineering, civil engineering, electronics, and so on (Ref 20,21). Among all the AM processes, VPP shows unique capability and demonstrates superiority in a wide variety of applications (Ref 24,25 ).…”

Additive Manufacturing of Functional Microarchitected Reactors for Energy, Environmental, and Biological Applications

“…Although the AM methods have shown great advantages in fabricating multifunctional structures, there are still several problems that need to be addressed. The kinds of materials that are available for the multimaterial AM methods are usually limited [10,31,32]. Broadening of the material library that can be additive manufactured and enabling novel composites are critical tasks in the future.…”

“…The design framework begins with the selection of the AM methods and the related material library based on the given functional requirements. Although AM technologies have shown great potential in fabricating multifunctional structures, an important challenge for the AM methods is their limitation in functional materials [16,86]. Considering the diversity of functional materials, AM with functional materials is critical in elevating its impact in the microreactor and material societies.…”

“…3). However, the functional devices are desirable to contain both micro-and/ or nanoscale features (i.e., multiscale) or range from dozens of centimeters to several microns (i.e., scalable) [86]. The existing AM methods can hardly fabricate such a complex geometric shape, produce the functional performance of the built scalable and multiscale 3D objects.…”