By Patricia Smith, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Jack Cowie and John Weritz, The Aluminum Association. Introduction Additive manufacturing (AM) technology, or 3D printing, is the process of producing a three-dimensional component from a computer-aided design (CAD) model by adding material layer by layer. AM technology was originally developed for polymers in the 1980s. Metal powder […]
By Jessica Elder, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Jack Cowie and John Weritz, The Aluminum Association. Although pure aluminum is utilized in many important products (such as electrical cables), alloying aluminum with other elements is crucial to achieve the mechanical, formability, and other performance specifications that are required for the use of aluminum in a majority […]
