The increasing focus on sustainability worldwide has collectively added impetus to market growth for additive manufacturing (AM) and additive generation. Various market research studies have identified the area of AM with metal materials as being a key growth segment. In fact, research by AMPOWER (ampower.eu), an industrial 3D printing consultancy from Hamburg in Germany has predicted that the metal additive manufacturing market will experience an annual growth rate of 25.5% until 2026.
In such a scenario, this special issue begins with an interview with Johannes Gartner, VP of Additive Manufacturing Austria in which we seek to provide an overview of the current state of the market and the various segments that offer the greatest potential for industrial manufacturing and business application, and a discussion of some of the bottlenecks currently hampering widespread adoption and implementation.
To complement the value chain of Additive Manufacturing, we have included several pieces from different specialists in the AM sector, going from the powder experts, to the manufacturers and the AM quality control professionals, looking at this growing market from different perspectives and presenting various types of 3D printing processes and materials for industrial production.