Today’s design and manufacturing world is quickly evolving to a model-based environment, one where intelligent 3D CAD models are the authority, containing not only the information to build a part or assembled product, but also to verify the end result against the nominal 3D CAD design. 

Two-dimensional and 3D X-ray technologies are among the most useful nondestructive testing methods. They enable the inspection of an object’s internal features without having to disassemble the sample or destroy the part in the process. 

The market for specialist metal additive manufacturing (AM) services is rapidly evolving as more and more companies realise the advantages which metal additive manufacturing offers over more traditional design and manufacturing techniques. 

Materials testing in metal additive manufacturing (AM) involves characterization of raw materials and evaluation of finished parts. The raw materials used in metal AM processes include powders, filaments and sheets. 

Additive manufacturing (AM) is everywhere and anywhere nowadays. Every day technical websites, and even most social media sites, are posting cool videos and new applications. 

With conventional machining of metal component parts, the interior structures are often taken for granted as solid, leaving little room for doubt about the internal quality. 

While you may be familiar with the concepts behind additive manufacturing, the inspection methods themselves may not be as well known.

Additively manufactured parts face unique testing challenges. Along with many aspects of additive manufacturing, testing and inspection of additively manufactured parts is now being studied. Last October the ASTM International Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence announced its first set of R&D projects.

Creativity—the ability to imagine things that do not exist and make them a reality—is said to be one of the things that elevates humans above other species.

Though buzzier than ever in 2019, 3D printing has existed for at least 35 years, beginning with the invention of stereolithography in 1984 and accelerating with the development of fused deposition modeling in 1988. More recently, however, additive manufacturing for series production, paired with an uptick in lower-cost metal 3D printers, has elevated the industrial 3D printing industry to previously unreachable heights.