Do additive manufactured parts deserve better?

Additive manufacturing of metallic components is regarded as one of the more exciting developments in engineering. The combined attractions of near net shape, tailored composition, and geometry optimisation have led to much interest in the various processes used and a drive to improve the mechanical properties to match those of wrought parts.

In this paper, we reflect on the apparent lack of ambition in optimising the structural integrity of parts made using these new manufacturing processes. The current research focus seems to be either on largely irrelevant static properties, or on quantifying the fatigue response in a way that would be familiar to engineers in the 19th Century.

Given the work on the role of microstructure and fatigue, which dates back to Ewing and Humphrey in 1903 reaching its zenith in the 1980s and 90s with Keith Miller in the vanguard, and recent developments in both imaging technologies and sophisticated numerical modelling, all the elements are in place for a much more rigorous, and ultimately more fruitful, approach to understand the structural integrity of additive manufactured components.