Ricerc@Sapienza

Aerospace industry is showing increasing interest in the unique possibilities provided by advanced manufacturing technologies applied to very small satellites. In particular, Additive Manufacturing (AM) techniques are always more imposing itself to represent key enabling technologies for a broad range of new space missions and systems.

This book introduces readers to additive technology and its application in different business sectors. It explores the fundamental impact additive has on technology, particularly on operations, innovation, supply chains, the environment and customer relations. Subsequently, on the basis of a broad survey of the best technology adopters, it offers advice on how to enhance business value by implementing the technology in different industrial and commercial environments.

The exploitation of mechanical properties and customization possibilities of 3D printed metal parts usually come at the cost of complex and expensive equipment. To address this issue, hybrid metal/polymer composite filaments have been studied allowing the printing of metal parts by using the standard Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) approach. The resulting hybrid metal/polymer part, the so called “green”, can then be transformed into a dense metal part using debinding and sintering cycles.

The multidisciplinary field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine can benefit from the potential of additive manufacturing as a fabrication technique that can realize custom medical devices. This is particularly true when referred to the macroscopic dimensions of the resulting scaffold, but focussing on the microstructure that should be realized to offer a suitable environment to the seeded cells, possible drawbacks can be highlighted.

In the context of exploring the possibility of using Al-powder Selective Laser Meltingto fabricate horn antennas for astronomical applications at millimeter wavelengths,we describe the design, the fabrication, the mechanical characterization, and theelectromagnetic performance of additive manufactured horn antennas for the W-band. Our aim, in particular, is to evaluate the performance impact of two basickinds of surface post-processing (manual grinding and sand-blasting) to deal withthe well-known issue of high surface roughness in 3D printed devices.

The use of dispersions of poly(vinyl alcohol) PVA and detonation nanodiamond (DND) as novel inks for 3D printing
of variously shaped objects using a layer-by-layer additive manufacturingmethod is reported. In parallelwith
the nanocomposites preparation, we designed a 3D printing apparatus and settled protocols for the shaping of
hybrid materials, choosing PVA-DND inks as a model system to test the performances of the 3D apparatus.
Along with material design and preparation, we discuss the main factors influencing the quality of the final

Several are nowadays the technologies considered determinant enablers of relevant
changes in societies and economies. One of these is Additive Manufacturing.
Additive Manufacturing has been widely hailed as a revolution, hyped by the
covers of publications from Wired, The Economist, Harvard Business Review and
other important magazines. It has been defined as “a historic window of opportunity
to rewrite the rules of industry”.1 An outstanding opportunity to reconfigure the production