Conventional and Additively Manufactured Stainless Steels: A Review

Abstract

For the last three decades, enormous manufacturing processes have been widely employed in the field of transportation (aviation, automobile and marine) as well as various industrial sectors. Among the invented techniques, conventional manufacturing plays a versatile and cost effective role, but additive manufacturing (AM) possesses a more significant advantage of handling complicated parts or complex geometrical structures. The conventional processes were used from ancient times until the development of other advanced techniques. In recent development of technology, AM technology has shown a tremendous change in the manufacturing field. The process of development in AM began with polymers, then to composites and advanced to nanocomposites, continuously. AM provides a waste-free production management system with enhanced processes. Therefore, this detailed and compendious review describes the different stainless steels fabricated through conventional and AM techniques. It is evident that AM proves better than other several conventional techniques, by three dimensional (3D) printing of quality and complex stainless steels components that are impossible to manufacture through other methods. Notwithstanding, there still need of much efforts to improve AM technique by reducing the manufacturing cost, supporting mass production and printing large stainless steel components. With an increase in invention of various efficient state-of-the-art engineering software, robots in manufacturing, artificial intelligence and smart manufacturing, the aforementioned drawbacks of AM technique/3D printing of various stainless steel structures will be soon eradicated.