There’s a lot of confusion around what the terms additive manufacturing and 3D

printing mean.

And that’s hardly surprising. After all, both terms relate to very similar processes.

Both additive manufacturing and 3D printing describe a process of creating objects by

gradually building up thin layers of material.

In this article, we’ll explain exactly what additive manufacturing and 3D printing are,
how they relate to each other, and what they are used for.

What is Additive Manufacturing Used for in 3d

Printing?
In traditional manufacturing, parts are often machined from larger blocks of material. In
other words, material is subtracted from the starting block in order to form the part.
Naturally, this causes a lot of waste. If you’ve ever seen a video of a machinist turning a
solid block of metal or wood into a finished part, you were probably struck by the sheer
amount of wasted material.

By contrast, in additive manufacturing, parts are made by building up layers of material

to form the finished part. How does it work? That depends on the type of additive
manufacturing used.

According to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), there are seven
categories of additive manufacturing:
1. VAT Photopolymerization — objects are constructed from layers of liquid
photopolymer resin, which is cured using ultraviolet light.
2. Powder Bed Fusion — objects are constructed from layers of material powder
and melted (or ‘fused’) using heat or a powerful laser. Common techniques
include selective laser sintering (SLS).
3. Material Jetting — each layer of an object is constructed using a print head,
which deposits droplets of a liquid material onto a build surface where they
quickly solidify. Once complete, each layer is cured using ultraviolet light.
4. Sheet Lamination — objects are constructed from sheets or ribbons of metal,
which are bound together using ultrasonic welding. Sheet lamination isn’t a
completely additive technique, as surplus material must usually be removed
using traditional manufacturing techniques like CNC machining.
5. Material Extrusion — material is drawn through a nozzle, where it is heated
and deposited in layers on a build platform. In this case, no additional process is
needed to cure the layers, as each layer is deposited in a melted state.
6. Directed Energy Deposition — DED encompasses a range of complex additive
manufacturing techniques used to repair or add material to existing components.
In most implementations, a melted material is deposited through a nozzle onto
the target surface, where it solidifies. The process is similar in principle to
material extrusion, with the exception that the nozzle must be able to move in
multiple directions to account for differently shaped target surfaces.
7. Binder Jetting — also known as 3D Printing.