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Review
. 2021 Feb 28;13(5):753.
doi: 10.3390/polym13050753.

Additive Manufacturing of Polymer Materials: Progress, Promise and Challenges

Saad Saleh Alghamdi  1 , Sabu John  2 , Namita Roy Choudhury  1 , Naba K Dutta  1
Affiliations
Review

Additive Manufacturing of Polymer Materials: Progress, Promise and Challenges

Saad Saleh Alghamdi et al. Polymers (Basel). .

Abstract

The use of additive manufacturing (AM) has moved well beyond prototyping and has been established as a highly versatile manufacturing method with demonstrated potential to completely transform traditional manufacturing in the future. In this paper, a comprehensive review and critical analyses of the recent advances and achievements in the field of different AM processes for polymers, their composites and nanocomposites, elastomers and multi materials, shape memory polymers and thermo-responsive materials are presented. Moreover, their applications in different fields such as bio-medical, electronics, textiles, and aerospace industries are also discussed. We conclude the article with an account of further research needs and future perspectives of AM process with polymeric materials.

Keywords: 3D printing; 4D printing; additive manufacturing; composite materials; polymer; polymer composites; smart materials.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
History and landmark achievements in 3D printing timeline from the 1980s to today.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a) Global scientific trends in additive manufacturing: a summary of the year-wise publications of research articles that are indexed in Scopus database. (b) Geographical distribution of patents on additive manufacturing as per Scopus database.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Classification of additive manufacturing processes from different contexts.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Schematic representation of the most popular additive manufacturing processes used for fabrication of polymer products (a) polyjet printing; (b) stereolithography (SLA); (c) direct light processing (DLP); (d) selective laser sintering (SLS); (e) fused deposition modeling (FDM); (f) laminated object manufacturing (LOM); (g) selective deposition modeling (SDM).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Schematic representation of the most popular additive manufacturing processes used for fabrication of polymer products (a) polyjet printing; (b) stereolithography (SLA); (c) direct light processing (DLP); (d) selective laser sintering (SLS); (e) fused deposition modeling (FDM); (f) laminated object manufacturing (LOM); (g) selective deposition modeling (SDM).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Complex flower morphologies generated by biomimetic 4D printing. (a,b) Simple flowers composed of 90°/0° (a) and 45°/45° (b) bilayers oriented with respect to the long axis of each petal, with time-lapse sequences of the flowers during the swelling process (bottom panel) (scale bars, 5 mm, inset = 2.5 mm). (c–f) Print path (c), printed structure (d) and resulting swollen structure (e) of a flower demonstrating a range of morphologies inspired by a native orchid, the Dendrobium helix (f). Based on the print path, this orchid architecture exhibits four different configurations: bending, twisting and ruing corolla surrounding the central funnel-like domain (scale bars, 5 mm). Reprinted by permission from [208] published by Springer Nature.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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