http://www.mtadditive.com/index.cfm/trends-in-additive/learn…
this is an older May 2014 article and is about metal laser printing not EBM.But the problems of getting used to Additive Manufacturing are the same. The benefits of weight saved by using 3DP steel howitzer nuts are magnified on aircraft, where the weight is lifted rather than towed.
I wish EOS was publicly owned. German companies tend to prefer staying private. The giant arms firm of Krupp was owned by one family
throughout most of it’s existence.
the big problems still facing additive manufacturing today. One of those problems is that the technology is immature. In the future, he expects the equipment for making parts through additive layers to be faster, cheaper, more repeatable and more capable than it is today. He also expects its application to be much better understood. The resulting difference could be as great as the difference between early portable phones and the smartphones of today. “All of us currently doing additive manufacturing might be using the bag phone version of this technology,” he says. The other problem is that the market is immature. The demand for production metal parts made through additive manufacturing is still so small as to be effectively zero, he says. The manufacturer therefore has to create the demand instead. That is, the manufacturer has to obtain the additive production capability first, then set about educating potential customers about the ways they can benefit from the capability.
because additive manufacturing is the future. He has little doubt. The two problems described above are temporary and small compared to the promise additive manufacturing offers to save cost and improve the designs of manufactured products.