Solid Freeform Fabrication: A New Direction in Manufacturing: with Research and Applications in Thermal Laser Processing

Solid Freeform Fabrication is a set of manufacturing processes that are capable of producing complex freeform solid objects directly from a computer model of an object without part-specific tooling or knowledge. In essence, these methods are miniature manufacturing plants which come complete with material handling, information processing and materials processing. As such, these methods require technical knowledge from many disciplines; therefore, researchers, engineers, and students in Mech...