Within the last decade, several industrialized countries have stressed the importance of advanced manufacturing to their economies. Many of these plans have highlighted the development of additive manufacturing techniques, such as 3D printing which, as of 2018, are still in their infancy. The objective is to develop superior products, produced at lower overall operational costs. For these goals to be realized, a deep understanding of the essential ingredients comprising the materials involved in additive manufacturing is needed. The combination of rigorous material modeling theories, coupled with the dramatic increase of computational power can potentially play a significant role in the analysis, control, and design of many emerging additive manufacturing processes. Specialized materials and the precise design of their properties are key factors in the processes. Specifically, particle-functionalized materials play a central role in this field, in three main regimes: (1) to enhance overall filament-based material properties, by embedding particles within a binder, which is then passed through a heating element and the deposited onto a surface, (2) to “functionalize” inks by adding particles to freely flowing solvents forming a mixture, which is then deposited onto a surface and (3) to directly deposit particles, as dry powders, onto surfaces and then to heat them with a laser, e-beam or other external source, in order to fuse them into place. The goal of these processes is primarily to build surface structures which are extremely difficult to construct using classical manufacturing methods. The objective of this monograph is introduce the readers to basic techniques which can allow them to rapidly develop and analyze particulate-based materials needed in such additive manufacturing processes. This monograph is broken into two main parts: “Continuum Method” (CM) approaches and “Discrete Element Method” (DEM) approaches. The materials associated with methods (1) and (2) are closely related types of continua (particles embedded in a continuous binder) and are treated using continuum approaches. The materials in method (3), which are of a discrete particulate character, are analyzed using discrete element methods.

The era of the fourth industrial revolution has fundamentally transformed the manufacturing landscape. Products are getting increasingly complex and customers expect a higher level of customization and quality. Manufacturing in the Era of 4th Industrial Revolution explores three technologies that are the building blocks of the next-generation advanced manufacturing.The first technology covered in Volume 1 is Additive Manufacturing (AM). AM has emerged as a very popular manufacturing process. The most common form of AM is referred to as 'three-dimensional (3D) printing'. Overall, the revolution of additive manufacturing has led to many opportunities in fabricating complex, customized, and novel products. As the number of printable materials increases and AM processes evolve, manufacturing capabilities for future engineering systems will expand rapidly, resulting in a completely new paradigm for solving a myriad of global problems.The second technology is industrial robots, which is covered in Volume 2 on Robotics. Traditionally, industrial robots have been used on mass production lines, where the same manufacturing operation is repeated many times. Recent advances in human-safe industrial robots present an opportunity for creating hybrid work cells, where humans and robots can collaborate in close physical proximities. This Cobots, or collaborative robots, has opened up to opportunity for humans and robots to work more closely together. Recent advances in artificial intelligence are striving to make industrial robots more agile, with the ability to adapt to changing environments and tasks. Additionally, recent advances in force and tactile sensing enable robots to be used in complex manufacturing tasks. These new capabilities are expanding the role of robotics in manufacturing operations and leading to significant growth in the industrial robotics area.The third technology covered in Volume 3 is augmented and virtual reality. Augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) technologies are being leveraged by the manufacturing community to improve operations in a wide variety of ways. Traditional applications have included operator training and design visualization, with more recent applications including interactive design and manufacturing planning, human and robot interactions, ergonomic analysis, information and knowledge capture, and manufacturing simulation. The advent of low-cost solutions in these areas is accepted to accelerate the rate of adoption of these technologies in the manufacturing and related sectors.Consisting of chapters by leading experts in the world, Manufacturing in the Era of 4th Industrial Revolution provides a reference set for supporting graduate programs in the advanced manufacturing area.

3D industrial printing has become mainstream in manufacturing. This unique book is the first to focus on polymers as the printing material. The scientific literature with respect to 3D printing is collated in this monograph. The book opens with a chapter on foundational issues such and presents a broad overview of 3D printing procedures and the materials used therein. In particular, the methods of 3d printing are discussed and the polymers and composites used for 3d printing are detailed. The book details the main fields of applications areas which include electric and magnetic uses, medical applications, and pharmaceutical applications. Electric and magnetic uses include electronic materials, actuators, piezoelectric materials, antennas, batteries and fuel cells. Medical applications are organ manufacturing, bone repair materials, drug-eluting coronary stents, and dental applications. The pharmaceutical applications are composite tablets, transdermal drug delivery, and patient-specific liquid capsules. A special chapter deals with the growing aircraft and automotive uses for 3D printing, such as with manufacturing of aircraft parts and aircraft cabins. In the field of cars, 3D printing is gaining importance for automotive parts (brake components, drives), for the fabrication of automotive repair systems, and even 3D printed vehicles.

This book covers the fundamentals of different laser-based manufacturing and processing, namely laser shock peening, laser micromachining, laser cleaning, cladding, remelting, laser honing, and other several aspects of lasers. The book discusses the general laser interaction with different materials. The application of laser-based post-processing of additive manufacturing and repair engineering is reported. It also provides the reader with mechanism of lasers in manufacturing and recent developments in tools, technologies, controls, and operations.

The COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2019-2020 has led to a gigantic increase in modeling and simulation of infectious diseases. There are numerous topics associated with this epoch-changing event, such as (a) disease propagation, (b) transmission, (c) decontamination, and (d) vaccines. This is an evolving field. The targeted objective of this book is to expose researchers to key topics in this area, in a very concise manner. The topics selected for discussion have evolved with the progression of the pandemic. Beyond the introductory chapter on basic mathematics, optimization, and machine learning, the book covers four themes in modeling and simulation infectious diseases, specifically: Part 1: Macroscale disease propagation, Part 2: Microscale disease transmission and ventilation system design, Part 3: Ultraviolet viral decontamination, and Part 4: Vaccine design and immune response. It is important to emphasize that the rapid speed at which the simulations operate makes the presented computational tools easily deployable as digital twins, i.e., digital replicas of complex systems that can be inexpensively and safely optimized in a virtual setting and then used in the physical world afterward, thus reducing the costs of experiments and also accelerating development of new technologies.

Polymers for 3D Printing: Methods, Properties, and Characteristics provides a detailed guide to polymers for 3D printing, bridging the gap between research and practice, and enabling engineers, technicians and designers to utilise and implement this technology for their products or applications. Presents the properties, attributes, and potential applications of the polymeric materials used in 3D printing Analyses and compares the available methods for 3D printing, with an emphasis on the latest cutting-edge technologies Enables the reader to select and implement the correct 3D printing technology, according to polymer properties or product requirements

This book presents a selection of papers on advanced technologies for 3D printing and additive manufacturing, and demonstrates how these technologies have changed the face of direct, digital technologies for the rapid production of models, prototypes and patterns. Because of their wide range of applications, 3D printing and additive manufacturing technologies have sparked a powerful new industrial revolution in the field of manufacturing. The evolution of 3D printing and additive manufacturing technologies has changed design, engineering and manufacturing processes across such diverse industries as consumer products, aerospace, medical devices and automotive engineering. This book will help designers, R&D personnel, and practicing engineers grasp the latest developments in the field of 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing.