Dear Colleagues,

Over the last years and decades, “Laser Beam Melting” (LBM)—known as “Selective Laser Melting” (SLM),“3D-printing”, “LaserCusing” and many more—has emerged from pure science, beyond part prototyping, to an individualized production technology. Individualized production is referred to as the manufacturing of products or lots of parts that are uniquely differentiated from one to the other. It is an emerging trend which provides added value and distinction within high value manufacturing: Suppliers can provide more ad hoc, competitive products (according to the customer’s wishes) and deliver new services and localized functionalities (production on demand). Besides individualization, Additive Manufacturing (AM) techniques like LBM enable a huge degree of freedom of geometry and thus enable functionally optimized components to be produced. For these reasons, AM is increasingly making its way into industrial manufacturing chains.
The goal of this Special Issue is to compile a broad range of state-of-the-art contributions in this field into a single collection. Research fields of interest will range from engineering and design, through materials design and process improvements, to fundamental mechanical evaluation of parts produced. I wish to suggest non-exclusively, the following research agenda:
Integration of functions, internal structures, hollow or lattice structures, topology-optimized design as well as monolithic design of former assemblies, light-weight design and manufacture, process and productivity improvements, new materials, material design for AM, process monitoring, quality control, process simulation, applications for series production, process chains, pre- and post-processing of AM-manufactured parts, mechanical properties, microstructure, cracks and defects, etc. to mention just a few.

Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dipl.-Wirt. Ing. Johannes Henrich Schleifenbaum
Guest Editor

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• Selective Laser Melting (SLM)
• 3D printing
• design for AM
• (digital) process chains
• material properties
• part quality
• productivity improvement
• process monitoring
• quality control
• process simulation
• new materials
• materials for SLM
• applications for series production