Fundamental study on plasma deposition manufacturing

Direct fabrication of metal or end-use-material components has become one of the most interesting fields in the R&D of. materials additive manufacturing (MAM) at present. Plasma deposition manufacturing (PDM), as an emerging MAM technique derived from plasma powder surfacing, has the capacity and predominance of producing fully dense metal or high performance specialty material parts with complex shapes. This process starts with a CAD model and automatically assembles materials to a designed configuration without the need of molding or tooling. The present paper reports initial pilot study of PDM process, and some existing problems and further study are also discussed in detail. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.