Issues and Opportunities in Additive Manufacturing Products Specification, a Review

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is no longer limited to prototyping, as it is gaining an increasingly large market share. With this expansion, there is a growing demand for the development of standardized rules to establish product specifications and verification procedures. AM offers unique opportunities in free-form shape design and multi-material processing, in contrast to traditional manufacturing processes and communication methods. Because of AM’s unique features, existing standards struggle to describe its product specifications. New regulations are therefore under development This paper reviews the state of the art in Additive Manufacturing (AM) product specification. This research examines the most up-to-date literature and standards published by the ISO, and ASME committees. A research gap has been identified in the accurate determination of design intent, which is crucial for defining product specifications. “Profile tolerance” is recognized as the most versatile specification for free-form geometries; however, new tools can be developed to control lattice structures. Additionally, the authors identified a significant gap in the assessment of dimensional and geometrical deviations in AM processes, as these are often estimated using geometrical benchmarks designed for subtractive technologies. Finally, verification remains one of the most critical aspects of AM products. Computed Tomography (CT) currently represents the only viable approach for measuring inaccessible features; however, standardized reconstruction methods are still lacking, as is a specification method tailored specifically for this measurement technique.