Additive Manufacturing of Funtionally Graded Materials

Functionally graded materials (FGMs) are advanced materials that are used to prevent the problems that arise when composite materials with sharp interfaces are used in a harsh working environment, which includes stress singularities due to property mismatchs, poor adhesion, and delamination. A number of conventional manufacturing processes have been used to produce functionally graded materials and some of these manufacturing processes were presented in Chap. 3. Additive manufacturing (AM) technology is an advanced manufacturing process that offers many advantages and possibilities for the fabrication of complex three-dimensional products through material addition, as against the material removal in the conventional machining processes. Some of the AM technologies have the capability of fabricating complex parts that are made with the functionally graded material (FGM) in a single manufacturing process. Some of the AM technologies that are used to produce functional FGM parts include: selective-laser sintering, selective-laser melting, the laser-metal deposition process, and fused-deposition modelling. These AM technologies are presented in this chapter; and some of the research work using these technologies for the fabrication of FGMs are also reviewed.