Laser based additive manufacturing in industry and academia

Additive manufacturing (AM) is pushing towards industrial applications. But despite good sales of AM machines, there are still several challenges hindering a broad economic use of AM. This keynote paper starts with an overview over laser based additive manufacturing with comments on the main steps necessary to build parts to introduce the complexity of the whole process chain. Then from a manufacturing process oriented viewpoint it identifies these barriers for Laser Beam Melting (LBM) using results of a round robin test inside CIRP and the work of other research groups. It shows how those barriers may be overcome and points out research topics necessary to be addressed in the near future.