Welding has been an integral part of manufacturing since the beginning of the 20th century. The development of technologies using electricity has made the most common arc welding methods—TIG, MIG, and stick welding—widespread in a variety of industries. All three of these arc welding methods rely on a consumable or non consumable electrode to join metals by either depositing melted metal or melting the target metals themselves. Arc welding is used in the automotive, construction, and aerospace industries.

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Figure 1. A stick welding diagram showing: 1. coating flow, 2. rod, 3. shield gas, 4. fusion, 5. base metal, 6. weld metal, and 7. solidified slag. Image available in the public domain . Additive manufacturing (AM), however, is a much younger technology. Though early techniques were developed in the 1970s and 1980s, the potential of 3D printing was not fully realized until the 2010s. Initially, 3D printing was only used […]

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