The key aspect of these direct fabrication techniques is the ability to deposit or build up material only where it is required to produce finished or nearly finished parts. The additive nature of these processes leads to tremendous flexibility in the shape and complexity of parts that can be fabricated. While excellent engineering progress has been made in this field, the materials issues associated with these layerwise additive processes have not been well studied. For example, not enough attention has been paid to the topic of microstructural homogeneity, which will be strongly determined by the specific SFF process used.
Many techniques also produce unique microstructures that dramatically impact materials performance.
Furthermore, the ability to do pointwise deposition of one or more materials provides the opportunity for fabricating materials with novel microstructural and macrostructural features, such as microengineered porosity, graded interfaces, and complex multimaterial constructions. In particular, the materials compatibility issues associated with multimaterial, multifunctional components are just beginning to be addressed. This symposium will bring together experts in the SFF field to discuss recent developments in SFF and additive methods for fabricating metals, ceramics, polymers, and composites. Contributions are also encouraged to discuss applications of these advanced processing techniques. 607 Taylor Rd.