The metal additive manufacturing (AM, aka 3D printing) industry is in vigorous pursuit of repeatable part quality. Its aim is to match the reliability and performance found in traditional manufacturing industries such as machining or casting. Repeatable quality opens the door to wide-scale implementation in product development: Witness the explosive growth of molded plastics after the development of a well-defined shape-forming process for part consolidation and functionally creative geometries was established.

Industry analyst Smartech Publishing states that the AM market crossed $10 billion last year. Going forward, AM’s potential in series production and direct part replacement is huge. Growth now depends largely on quantitative quality measurement and establishing dependable machine-calibration methods. Even the improving cost-efficiencies of AM won’t advance the process much if component behavior can’t be fully understood and trusted in mission-critical applications or across mid- to high-volume orders.

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