Retrospective investigation on emergence and development of additive manufacturing

The ability to obtained personalized and complex-shaped products with lower cost of development, less energy consumed during manufacturing, less material waste while facilitating in making the products on-demand are the unique benefits associated with additive manufacturing (AM). This work is a review comprising of the details on the early development of AM including key developments over the years, followed by discussion on the advantages offered by AM in relation to the traditional manufacturing methods. The purpose of this work is to help the researchers in the area to have an idea of emergence of the AM technology and gather the information associated since the creation of first three-dimensional (3D) object till the advancement in the field in recent years. Discussion on some recent research developments therefore are made part of this study work in order to clearly have an idea of currently conducted work by the researchers in the development of materials, enhancement of material properties and study of effect of various factors, additives, orientation, machining parameters, etc. on the behavior of additively manufactured material.