Laser-Assisted Additive Fabrication of Micro-Sized Coatings

Laser-assisted additive manufacturing process is an advanced manufacturing process that can be used to fabricate complex parts by adding materials layer after layer directly from the three dimensional (3D) computer aided design (CAD) model of the part. The benefit of this manufacturing process is enormous and includes the ability to reduce production to market time, the ability to reduce product weight, and the ability to improve product properties by which industries such as the aerospace, automobile, and biomedical industries benefit from this technology. Laser-assisted additive manufacturing process is also used to fabricate thin film coatings on products in order to improve the surface properties of these products. In this chapter, the use of this laser assisted additive fabrication technology to produce micro-sized or thin film coatings of polymers, metals, and composites is presented. Case studies on the influence of processing parameters on the properties of micro-sized coating of titanium alloy and titanium alloy composites is also presented.