Material Issues in Layered Forming

Abstract

A brief overview of key issues in layered thermal processing is given. Incremental sintering and layered fusion of powder and molten droplets are discussed. The criteria for remelting the solid substrate are derived from a one dimensional heat transfer model. Temperature gradients which occur during solidification and subsequent cooling are responsible for the build up of internal stresses which can be estimated through establishing an elastic beam model. The difficulties as well as opportunities regarding the generation of multi-layer multi-material structures are also described in this article.