Surface characteristics improvement methods for metal additively manufactured parts: a review

Additive Manufacturing technique has the capacity to fabricate 3D parts with complex geometries, but these parts contain some defects, including increased roughness, poor quality, and poor fatigue life. These defects have resulted from balling effects, staircase effects, and incompletely fused, leading to irregular morphologies of surfaces. These irregular morphologies result in the poor or deteriorated performance of the structures, limiting their applications. The post- treatment techniques have been developed to improve the surface quality of AM parts. In this review, different technologies of surface finishing methods, including chemical, mechanical and thermal-based methods depending upon the method of removal of material, are discussed. The advancements in the techniques are highlighted, and the results obtained from different experimental studies involving different categories of finishing and polishing of the AM parts are compared and discussed in this paper. Different opportunities and challenges to maintain and control the surface roughness of the additively manufactured components of the metallic substances are addressed. [GRAPHICS] .

Automated summary

This review discusses different surface finishing methods using various technologies to improve the surface quality of AM parts, highlighting advancements and comparing results from different experimental studies. Opportunities and challenges in maintaining and controlling the surface roughness of additively manufactured components made of metallic substances are also addressed.