Additive manufacturing is a technology rapidly expanding on a number of industrial sectors. It provides design freedom and environmental/ecological advantages. It transforms essentially design files to fully functional products. However, it is still hampered by low productivity, poor quality and uncertainty of final part mechanical properties. The root cause of undesired effects lies in the control aspects of the process. Optimization is difficult due to limited modelling approaches. Physical phenomena associated with additive manufacturing processes are complex, including melting/ solidification and vaporization, heat and mass transfer etc. The goal of the current study is to map available additive manufacturing methods based on their process mechanisms, review modelling approaches based on modelling methods and identify research gaps. Later sections of the study review implications for closed-loop control of the process.

Additive manufacturing (AM) is one of the fastest growing and most promising manufacturing technologies, offering significant advantages over conventional manufacturing processes. That is, the geometrical flexibility that leads to increased design freedom is not infinite as the numerous AM processes impose manufacturing limitations. Abiding by these manufacturability rules implies a backpropagation of AM knowledge to all design phases for a successful build. A catholic AM-driven design framework is needed to ensure full exploitation of the AM design capabilities. The current framework is based on the definition of the CAD aspects and the AM process parameters. Their dependence, affection to the resulted part, and weight on the total process determine the outcome. The AM-driven design framework prevents manufacturing issues of certain geometries, that can be effortlessly created by conventional manufacturing, and additionally exploits the full design-freedom potentials AM has to offer with a linear design flow reducing design iterations and ultimately achieving first time right AM design process.

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