The effects of additive manufacturing process factors on component geometric shape deviation: A review

The geometric shape deviation of manufactured components is a vital issue to be considered in the additive manufacturing (AM) process design step. Various factors in the process design step would affect the geometric shape deviation of the final AM components. Normally, the procedure of AM process design consists of model transformation into Standard Tessellation Language (STL)/Additive Manufacturing File (AMF), build orientation determination, support structure design, slicing setting, scanning path planning, machine parameters setting in layered manufacturing and post-processing design. And the types of approximate surfaces of input files, meshing strategies, build orientation, support structure, slicing pattern, etc. could be the contributors of geometric deviation. Numerous research efforts concerning the influence of these process factors on component geometric shape deviation have been carried out. This paper provides a review of such research work from three perspectives: process stage and environment parameters; systematic and random errors as well as single factor and multiple factors. The influence analyses of AM process factors on component geometric shape deviation in current relevant literatures are discussed and summarized from the above-mentioned perspectives. The survey and analysis could assist the development of future research work on component geometric shape deviation for AM.