Modelling, Validation, and Design for Additive Manufacturing: Applications of numerical methods to 3D printing processes

Additive manufacturing (AM) technology has known an exponential growth over the last decades. From aerospace industry to biomedical applications, from organic tissues to jewelry production, the range of components that can be produced by means of additive technology is extremely various. Nevertheless, AM is still far from being considered a mature technology. Its limitation is mainly due to the lack of standardization and predictability of AM processes. In fact, these processes involve complex physical phenomena which are extremely challenging to measure and model. Within the field of AM, numerical methods can be effectively employed to improve understanding of the physical effects occurring during the manufacturing process, to optimize the process parameters in order to minimize defects in the final artifact and to develop optimal design specifically suited for AM. Starting from the above observations, this work aims at developing numerical methods and models specifically tailored to be employed in AM applications. The objective of the present work is to decline novel numerical techniques in the field of AM, to this end we devoted a special effort in the experimental validation of the presented results, which is a necessary step to asses the reliability of the proposed methodologies.