The economic impact of additive manufacturing

Also known as Additive Manufacturing, 3D printing is

a new technology that creates an object by literally 'adding' material one piece at a time, until the final shape and size of the object—in this case, your comfortable shoes—is reached.

3D printing works in a layer-by-layer fashion: metal or plastic powder is spread across one very thin layer (a few micrometers thick); then, a laser beam scans a slice of the object to be built. As the powder locally melts and binds together, a new layer of the object is built, melting the powder. A new layer of powder is then deposited on top of the structure, and the laser scan is repeated for a new slice—et voilá, the object gradually takes shape layer by layer.

Other than custom-size clothing, the possibilities for 3D printing are enormous: if you replace the plastic powder with metal powder, for example, the rich variety of complex objects typical in today's advanced engineering applications can be built. Here, there are many key advantages in using 3D printing rather than conventional manufacturing. For example, hollow shapes, that can't be built with conventional manufacturing, can be made in one single step of casting.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2015-12-economic-impact-additive.html#jCp