Abstract

Direct material deposition (DMD), also called rapid manufacturing (RM), additive manufacturing (AM), or 3Dprinting, brings many changes and opens new ways of production to every industry that it enters [1-4]. DMD-AM is an innovative technology, which layer by layer "prints" objects from a variety of materials, performing shapes that are not achievable by traditional manufacturing technologies. DMDAM, which started as prototyping in plastics, now succeeds in processing metals. DMD-AM in metals, first of all, in titanium alloys, gives a possibility to implicate net-shaped, complex geometrical and light-weight objects. It also provides high mechanical and specific acoustic properties, even better than those obtained by traditional mass production methods, such as casting or machining. The goal of the current research is to investigate the prospects of 3D-printing as a novel instrument for professional industrial designers developing new products and applications. However, DMD-AM has limitations that prevent the use of this technology for mass production. The paper presents examples of successful novel applications of 3D-printing by Additive Manufacturing Center at Technion (Israel).