Additive Manufacturing (AM) is one of the driving forces leading to the fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0. It is transforming the very way of component design and their manufacturing by introducing the “feature based design and manufacturing”. Realizing the importance of the technology, many educational institutions initiated specialized post-graduate courses on AM. Moreover, several Indian universities and engineering institutes have either introduced during last few years or planning to introduce a semester course on AM at the undergraduate level. The primary focus of these courses is to provide the overview of this rapidly growing field and to fill the technology gap by preparing specially trained manpower. Thus, a textbook on AM is essential for training the work forces.
This textbook is primarily aimed at students and educators in the field of AM as a self-contained course. It highlights the basic fundamentals of AM, various technologies, latest innovations in the area of AM along with questions at the end of each chapter and future scope/directions, especially for undergraduate and postgraduate students. It is expected that readers will be able to get an overview on how AM technologies are currently being used and how they can contribute in innovations. As AM is an evolving field, there are many augmentations in the last couple of years. The book extensively discusses the latest research trends such as AM of metallic components using high energy density sources, post processing of AM built components, design for AM and applications of AM in Industry 4.0 in a simple way.
The book is designed in such a way that it can be used as textbook for classroom teaching and researchers into AM may also find this textbook useful in understanding the processes, giving technology insights and the opportunities for further research. The textbook is written keeping in mind the teaching and learning pattern in Indian subcontinent and thus, we believe that the book will be a unique book for students and researchers in Indian subcontinent. As there is no book written by an Indian author available to cater the needs of the syllabus of Indian Universities comprehensively, the book will be useful for all the students and faculty members, especially for those, who find it difficult to adopt the textbooks written by foreign authors.