Now a day’s consumer purchase choices are very dynamic.

Therefore, costumer oriented cost

effective manufacturing is a biggest challenge. The fascinating features of the 3D printing made
it so popular solution to this challenge. Few of the advantage are economic feasible, production
speed, ease of access, single step manufacture, risk and waste mitigation capability, creative
design freedom.

Product manufacturing process

Cpital investments can be to risky for a for new production plant. It also takes

In the last three decades additive manufacturing (AM), also called 3D printing, has gained

widespread attention in industry due to the possibility to revolutionize manufacturing [4].

AM creates an object by adding material, contrary to subtractive manufacturing processes

such as milling and drilling, which shape an object by removing material. Some of the advantages

of AM are that small batches are economically feasible, design changes can be easily

and quickly implemented, and less material is needed compared to subtractive manufacturing

methods.

AM refers to multiple techniques such as selective-laser-sintering, fused deposition modeling

(FDM), and stereolithography. Selective-laser-sintering uses a powder bed as building material

and a laser to sinter the material. After sintering one layer the powder bed is lowered

and a layer of fresh powder is deposited and smoothed out. The fused deposition modeling

process uses a thermoplast as the building material, and liquefies it to deposit layers of molten

thermoplast on top of eachother. Stereolithography uses a photopolymer which solidifies after

being exposed to ultra-violet light. The stereolithography process is schematically identical to

selective-laser-sintering, but instead of a laser, ultraviolet light is used, and instead of powder
a photopolymer. See figure 1-1.

The physical processes are different, but the idea is the same for all techniques: build a

three-dimensional object by stacking contour slices on top of each other. Arguably the greatest

benefit that AM brings to society is its customized use in the medical industry. For

example inner ear hearing aids, knee replacements, skull parts, and hip replacements can be

made using AM techniques [5] [6].

Master of Science Thesis D