Abstract
Research on Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) of polymer powder feedstocks has raised over the last decade due to the increased utilization of the fabricated parts in aerospace, automotive, electronics, and healthcare applications. A total of 600 Science Citation Indexed articles were published on the topic of L-PBF of polymer powder feedstocks in the last decade, being cited more than 10,000 times leading to an h-index of 46. This study statistically evaluates the 100 most cited articles to extract reported material, process, and as-built part properties to analyze the research trends. PA12, PEEK, and TPU are the most employed polymer powder feedstocks, while size, flowability, and thermal behavior are the standardly reported material properties. Likewise, process properties such as laser power, scanning speed, hatch spacing, powder layer thickness, volumetric energy density, and areal energy density are extracted and evaluated. In addition, material and process properties of the as-built parts such as tensile test, flexural test, and volumetric porosity contents are analyzed. The incorporation of additives is found to be an effective route to enhance mechanical and functional properties. Carbon-based additives are typically employed in applications where mechanical properties are essential. Carbon fibers, Ca-phosphates, and SiO2 are the most reported additives in the evaluated SCI-expanded articles for L-PBF of polymer powder feedstocks. A comprehensive data matrix is extracted from the evaluated SCI-index publications, and a principal component analysis (PCA) is performed to explore correlations between reported material, process, and as-built parts.
Highlights
Recent progress, as well as commercialization trends, in the Additive Manufacturing (AM) industry can be extracted from survey-based commercial reports [1] and peerreviewed publication-based bibliometric analysis [2]
This study aims to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the reported properties of the material, the process, and the as-built parts from the 100 most cited SCI-expanded articles on laser powder bed fusion (L-powder bed fusion” (PBF)) of polymer powder feedstocks published over the last decade
Among the 600 publications reported for L-PBF of polymer powder feedstocks, a general analysis in terms of citations, materials employed, and temporal evolution of the number of publications has been provided in Figure 1 and Table S1
Summary
As well as commercialization trends, in the Additive Manufacturing (AM) industry can be extracted from survey-based commercial reports [1] and peerreviewed publication-based bibliometric analysis [2]. This study aims to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the reported properties of the material, the process, and the as-built parts from the 100 most cited SCI-expanded articles on L-PBF of polymer powder feedstocks published over the last decade. This way, a precise evaluation of the research trends in the field can be provided, as well as a framework for the optimization of the material, process parameters, and additives selection in L-PBF for the manufacturing of the desired as-built parts
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