3D printing composite materials: A comprehensive review

Three-dimensional (3-D) printing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), offers the freedom of design and the ability to fabricate complex structures with minimal wastes. These benefits have attracted many researchers, engineers, and technologists to develop 3-D printing technologies in producing a rapid prototyping process toward a functional object. This chapter provides a comprehensive review with a major focus on 3-D printing for composite materials based on polymers, ceramics, and metals as the matrices. It starts with the introduction of the basic concept of 3-D printing along with its general processing stages. It is then followed by the exploration of seven fundamental 3-D printing techniques consisting of binder jetting (BJ), directed energy deposition (DED), material extrusion (ME), material jetting (MJ), powder bed fusion (PBF), sheet lamination (SL), and vat photopolymerization (VP) along with the specification of individual 3-D printer types. The subsequent section is the primary part of this chapter which contains a detailed discussion, and a critical analysis related to the technology and the properties resulting from the 3-D printing of composite materials. Finally, specific applications are mentioned along with summary and future perspectives.