01
Deposit material through a nozzle
Material extrusion
Material is pushed through a nozzle and placed along a programmed path. Familiar desktop examples use heated thermoplastic filament and are called FFF or FDM.
From pixels to physical objects
Different processes. New possibilities.
Learn the principal additive manufacturing process families and the terms used to describe them.
02
Turn liquid resin into solid layers
Vat photopolymerization
Light selectively hardens resin held in a vat. Laser SLA, projector-based DLP, and LCD-masked MSLA are different implementations of this process family.
03
Fuse selected regions of a powder bed
Powder bed fusion
Thermal energy joins selected areas within a layer of powder. The process family includes polymer and metal implementations, with different material and operating requirements.
04
Bind powder with a deposited liquid
Binder jetting
A printhead deposits binding material into selected regions of a powder bed. Further processing depends on the material and the intended finished part.
05
Place droplets of build material
Material jetting
A printhead deposits droplets of build material to form the object. Binder jetting instead deposits a binding material into a separate powder bed.
06
Melt material as it is delivered
Directed energy deposition
Material is deposited and fused using a concentrated energy source, such as a laser. NIST describes metal deposition onto a target surface as one implementation.
Sources: Additive Manufacturing Technologies
07
Join sheets into a three-dimensional form
Sheet lamination
Successive sheets of material are bonded to form the object. It is a distinct additive-manufacturing family, separate from nozzle deposition and powder-bed methods.
Process names and vendor terms are not always interchangeable. Compare machines within the same process and application before interpreting resolution, speed, or material claims.
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