Defects in Metal Additive Manufacturing: Formation, Process Parameters, Postprocessing, Challenges, Economic Aspects, and Future Research Directions

Metal additive manufacturing (AM) is a revolutionary technological advancement that has made significant inroads in a wide range of sectors, including aerospace, defense, automotive, health care, and engineering applications. It offers unprecedented design freedom, reduced material waste, and enhanced performance, in addition to significant enhancements to fabrication processes. Microstructural defects and internal stresses formed during fabrication directly affect the fabricated product's surface integrity, quality, and service life. Identification, characterization, and prediction of these defects help significant and direct production of defect-free structures with high density. This article provides detailed insights concerning the common defects, mitigation techniques, and challenges reported in both powder bed fusion-based and wire arc AM methods. Defects such as porosity may develop due to the powder sphericity, roughness of the powder, preheating, process parameters, build environment, postprocessing techniques, and environmental factors. Therefore, a critical study of the techniques, alloys, process parameter optimization, and different postprocessing techniques to tone down the defects is made from their formations.