Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that there are no standards for additively manufactured metal parts. The intended meaning was that there are no standards specifically for fatigue testing additively manufactured metal parts. This post has been updated to reflect the change.
In the near future, critical aerospace and automotive production parts may indeed come from a 3D printer. The technology’s potential is huge, agrees ASTM Fellow Steven Daniewicz. “But if we go too fast and we don’t know exactly what we’re doing, and there are failures associated with additive parts, we could deflate this balloon pretty quickly.”