Large Scale Metal Additive Techniques Review

In recent years additive manufacturing has made long strides toward becoming a main stream production technology. Particularly strong progress has been made in large-scale polymer deposition. However, large scale metal additive has not yet reached parity with large scale polymer. This paper is a survey of the metal additive techniques in the context of building large structures. Current commercial devices are capable of printing metal parts on the order of several cubic feet compared to hundreds of cubic feet for the polymer side. In order to follow the polymer progress path many factors must be considered—potential to scale, economy, environment friendliness, material properties, feedstock availability, robustness of the process, quality and accuracy, potential for defects, and post processing as well as potential applications. This paper focuses on current state of art of large scale metal additive technology with a focus on expanding the geometric limits.