With intensive development now well underway, additive manufacturing (AM) has the potential to revolutionise industrial design and production. Indeed, investment in AM has increased from just a few millions of dollars a decade ago to several hundred million dollars today, as companies such as General Electric and Siemens pioneer research and commercial implementation. Over the past half century traditional manufacturing processes such as machining and injection moulding have emerged as industry standards for high-volume mass production. 3D printing, the basis for AM, turns this "subtractive" approach on its head.
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