| dc.description.abstract | Thank you for taking the time to read this book on Additive Manufacturing (AM).
We hope you benefit from the time and effort it has taken putting it together and that
you think it was a worthwhile undertaking. It all started as a discussion at a
conference in Portugal when we realized that we were putting together books
with similar aims and objectives. Since we are friends as well as colleagues,
it seemed sensible that we join forces rather than compete; sharing the load and
playing to each others’ strengths undoubtedly means a better all-round effort and
result.
We wrote this book because we have all been working in the field of AM
for many years. Although none of us like to be called “old,” we do seem to have
decades of experience, collectively, and have each established reputations as
educators and researchers in this field. We have each seen the technologies
described in this book take shape and develop into serious commercial tools, with
tens of thousands of users and many millions of parts being made by AM machines
each year. AM is now being incorporated into curricula in many schools, polytechnics
and universities around the world. More and more students are becoming
aware of these technologies and yet, as we see it, there is no single text adequate for
such curricula. We hope that now, with this book, there is.
Additive Manufacturing is defined by a range of technologies that are capable of
translating virtual solid model data into physical models in a quick and easy
process. The data is broken down into a series of 2D cross-sections of a finite
thickness. These cross-sections are fed into AM machines so that they can be
combined, adding them together in a layer-by-layer sequence to form the physical
part. The geometry of the part is therefore clearly reproduced in the AM machine
without having to adjust for manufacturing processes, like attention to tooling,
undercuts, draft angles or other features. We can say therefore that the AM machine
is a What You See Is What You Build (WYSIWYB) process that is particularly
valuable the more complex the geometry is. This basic principle drives nearly all
AM machines, with variations in each technology in terms of the techniques used
for creating layers and in bonding them together. Further variations include speed, | en_US |
