3D Printing Technology: Materials, Application and Current Trends in Process Improvement

Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, is production technology for manufacturing parts, especially parts with complex geometry or complex structures. It opens different possibilities in part mass optimization, rapid prototyping as well as sustainable production and waste minimization. It is applicable in different fields such as mechanical engineering, civil engineering, medicine, food industry and so on. Manufactured parts from additive manufacturing can be very diversive depending on used technology and applied material. On qualitative features of 3D printed part can be influenced through various segments of additive manufacturing production from 3D modeling (optimizing model for 3D printing), 3D models slicing and production parameters adjustments (from the applied slicing software), 3D printer settings and used printing technology (applied material and used printing technology such as FDM or SLA, etc.) to 3D part post process treatment. This paper describes current 3D printing technologies, materials and methods for achieving functional 3D printed parts.