Rethinking the Traditional Prototyping Workflow

Until recently, prototyping a gear often required extensive lead times, custom tooling, and costly machining operations. For decades, manufacturing engineers and design teams accepted this as the status quo. Whether gears were cast, milled, or cut, creating just one functional prototype could take weeks, if not longer.

Moreover, any design revisions would trigger a new cycle of delays and expenditures. Small changes, such as adjusting the module or modifying tooth geometry, demanded time, budget approvals, and often created hesitation within development teams. This hesitation has historically slowed down innovation and limited early-stage experimentation.

Additive Manufacturing Enters the Equation

Additive manufacturing, often generalized as 3D printing, has steadily transitioned from a tool for creating concept models to a serious contender in functional prototyping. Today, engineers can produce accurate, mechanically capable gear prototypes using materials such as carbon fiber-reinforced nylon, stainless steel, and advanced polymers.

The appeal is clear. With technologies such as fused filament fabrication (FFF), selective laser sintering (SLS), and metal binder jetting, it’s now possible to go from CAD to physical part within a matter of hours or days, rather than weeks. Design teams gain the flexibility to test more iterations without being burdened by prohibitive costs or extended timelines.

Speed Is Reshaping Development Strategy

Accelerated prototyping does more than save time; it shifts how teams approach design altogether. Instead of narrowing options early in the process to reduce cost and risk, engineers can afford to explore more aggressively. Gear designers can test unconventional tooth profiles, evaluate new spacing ratios, or assess the impact of different pressure angles—all without making long-term production commitments.

For example, platforms like Markforged’s FX20 allow for carbon fiber-filled gear prototypes that maintain high stiffness and wear resistance, suitable for functional testing. Similarly, Desktop Metal’s binder jetting systems are increasingly being used to produce short-run steel gears with properties suitable for dynamic testing environments.

This ability to quickly iterate improves design quality and accelerates time to validation. Ultimately, it allows mechanical and R&D teams to make more informed decisions, earlier in the process.

Precision and Functional Testing: No Longer a Trade-off

One common critique of additive manufacturing has been its limited dimensional accuracy and surface finish compared to subtractive methods. However, this is no longer universally valid. Modern machines are consistently achieving tolerances within ±0.1 mm or better, especially when paired with controlled thermal environments and refined slicing algorithms.

For cases where tighter tolerances are essential, hybrid manufacturing approaches are gaining traction. These workflows combine additive production with post-processing techniques such as CNC machining or surface grinding, enabling both geometric freedom and precision where needed.

As a result, additive prototypes are not only suitable for fit checks but are increasingly used in load-bearing test environments, including dynamic gear meshes and real-world duty cycles.

Reducing Risk While Encouraging Innovation

Perhaps one of the most undervalued benefits of additive manufacturing is its effect on engineering psychology. When prototyping is expensive and slow, teams are understandably conservative. Mistakes can be costly. But when a design flaw can be corrected overnight and reprinted the next morning, the culture around experimentation shifts.

This freedom to test more designs, more often, significantly reduces the risk of late-stage failures and encourages a more proactive approach to problem solving. Engineers are free to try new approaches, confident that the cost of failure is manageable and that iteration cycles will remain efficient.

Moving Beyond Prototypes: Short-Run Production and Functional Use

Additive manufacturing has matured to the point where its role is no longer limited to early-stage development. Many gear manufacturers and system integrators are now using AM to produce short-run gear sets for custom machinery, low-volume applications, or pilot production builds.

Industries such as aerospace, robotics, and automotive R&D are actively employing 3D-printed gear components in real-world assemblies. These parts are not merely visual models; they perform under load, integrate into operational systems, and inform future manufacturing strategies.

Limitations Still Remain, But They Are Shrinking

It is important to acknowledge that additive manufacturing is not without its constraints. Surface finishes often require post-processing to achieve desired roughness, particularly for high-speed gears. Material limitations, especially regarding thermal stability and long-term fatigue, are still being addressed. In some cases, additive components serve only as precursors to final machined parts.

That said, the current capabilities of additive manufacturing—especially when integrated into a broader workflow—offer a level of design freedom and responsiveness that conventional methods cannot match on their own.

Looking Ahead: From Reactive to Strategic Design

The future of gear prototyping is not just faster—it is smarter. As generative design algorithms become more accessible, additive manufacturing will play a key role in bringing unconventional geometries and lightweight structures into functional testing environments.

By reducing the cost and time barrier between concept and application, additive processes are allowing engineering teams to focus more on performance-driven design and less on manufacturability constraints. For companies specializing in advanced gear engineering, this shift opens new opportunities to test unconventional geometries, custom ratios, and innovative load-transfer methods without being restricted by traditional production timelines.

Conclusion: A Shift in Capability and Culture

For gear manufacturers, mechanical engineers, and R&D professionals, additive manufacturing represents more than a new tool. It signifies a cultural and strategic shift in how products are developed, tested, and refined. What was once considered experimental is now essential.

With shorter lead times, lower costs, and an expanded capacity for design exploration, additive manufacturing is not simply accelerating prototyping—it is redefining what’s possible in early-stage gear development.

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Lasers are being used on a broader scale, with higher powers allowing for larger-scale work and higher beam qualities and shorter pulse widths allowing for smaller-scale work. In terms of revenue, the global laser market is expected to reach $9.7–11.7 billion in 2015 and $16.0 billion in 2022.

One application has been singled out as a potential game-changer that could usher in a new industrial revolution. On the other hand, revolutionary technology is likely to restructure supply chains, relocate production facilities, and drastically alter the geopolitical, economic, social, demographic, environmental, and security landscapes. This is an additive manufacturing process (AM).

Additive manufacturing (AM) began as a rapid prototyping technology for creating haptic models and has evolved into what it is today: a rapid tooling and manufacturing technology capable of producing fully functional parts in various materials, including metallic, non-metallic, and composites.

Additive manufacturing is a topic that continues to pique people’s interest, with predictions that it will significantly impact the industry in the future. According to ASTM Standard F2792, additive manufacturing processes are classified into seven categories: binder jetting, directed energy deposition, material jetting, material extrusion, powder bed fusion, sheet lamination, and vat photopolymerization. The operation of various AM systems has relative benefits and drawbacks. Although lasers do not have a monopoly on AM, it is clear from the classification that three of the seven major categories and two of the three process categories capable of producing metallic components require lasers.

Because of the evolution of AM systems into user-friendly, commercial units and the need for safety, the presence of a laser is not always prominent. Furthermore, to protect the build point from harmful oxidation during AM of metals, the user must be removed from the ‘sharp end’ of the manufacturing process, either by performing the entire operation in an inert chamber or by using a blown inert gas.

Existing commercial AM systems clearly make use of a variety of laser technologies. Wavelengths from the ultraviolet (354.7 nm) to the infrared range from around 1 W to 6 kW. (10.6 um). The requirements differ from one process to the next. However, the need to match SLA lasers to the polymer absorption spectrum, the use of different lasers for different materials in the powder bed fusion bed category, and the use of the shorter wavelength diode laser for directed energy deposition (DMD), despite poorer beam quality than the fiber laser, all indicate that absorption is a significant factor in laser selection.

AM is expected to snowball because it broadens design engineers’ horizons by providing a fundamentally different approach to traditional subtractive methods. This can also allow a broader range of components to be made as a single part, reducing the amount of material needed and eliminating the need for any type of joining. High costs, on the other hand, can negate these advantages.

The role of lasers in the future of AM

In the medium term, the significant users of additive manufacturing are unlikely to significantly change consumer products, direct medical components, transportation (including automobile and aerospace), and tool and mold manufacturing. The prediction that AM will change the way companies interact and global supply chains operate on a global scale will not be accurate unless a broader range of industries can be incentivized to use AM in the future.

To be successful, a company’s organization and culture must adapt from traditional to additive manufacturing, and research indicates that AM is having difficulty penetrating high-threat markets with fierce competition. Potential barriers include resource rigidity (failure to change resource investment patterns) and routine rigidity (failure to change organizational processes that use those resources). AM can address primary industry goals and trends, and the majority of these processes are laser-based.

As many predict, AM will need to break into new industries to continue to grow and become the dominant technology. Although some factors may apply to other sectors, the above analysis does not provide many incentives. (For example, in all markets, ‘accelerated product development’ is becoming more critical, and ‘aging population’ is likely to have an impact on demand for many products.)

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One of the main purposes of using AM is to save manufacturing time and increase production speed. This will accelerate prototyping and reduce the time of production of spare parts and replacement parts.

The conventional processes are usually subtractive or a combination of several processes in case of complicated parts. The major drawback of conventional processes is the high amount of material waste and lack of control systems to continuously modify the processes based on the current conditions.

With the rise of computer-controlled machines, additive manufacturers currently use different techniques to solve the problems in traditional methods and widen the selection range of processes for manufacturers and customers. Each process has its own key features, advantages, and disadvantages, depending on three important key features: time, cost, and flexibility. This post will give a quick overview of different techniques used in additive manufacturing.

1. Selective Laser Melting (SLM)

Selective laser melting (SLM) is one of the most popular techniques of AM. In SLM, metallic particles are fed in different layer thicknesses, and a laser beam melts the desired regions of the surface. In the next step, a new layer of powder is distributed on the build plate, and the laser source melts the powder until the deposition finishes, and the final shape is achieved

• Materials used: Metals, ceramics
• Applications: Industrial purposes, bio-applications, implants, actuators
• Advantages: Unlimited level of geometrical complexity, a wide range of metallic and ceramic powders, clean parts, high density
• Challenges: Fine powder is needed, fabrication chamber needs inert gas, slight metal evaporation in high laser powers
• Accuracy: 50–150 µm
• Post-Processing: Heat treatment, in some cases a slight deburring

2. Metal jetting

Material jetting binds materials to the main body of a part. In this, polymers are usually melted and deposited in droplets to form the needed geometry. The molten polymers then undergo a curing process by heat, light, or chemical reactions to increase the bonding strength.

• Materials used: Polymers, plastics
• Applications: Desktop applications, research purposes, bio-applications
• Advantages: High speed of fabrication, high flexibility in the process, low cost
• Challenges: Limitations in feedstock material selection, low geometrical accuracy in complex parts, and it is not consistent
• Accuracy: 5–200 µm
• Post-Processing: Usually some slight deburring and residue removal with hand

3. Binder jetting

Binder jetting works on the same principle as material jetting. However, in binder jetting, there is a prepared bed of metallic powder laying under a jetting nozzle that disperses bonding polymers selectively on the surface of the metallic powder. After applying the polymer glue on the surface, a new layer of metallic powder is deposited, and glue dispersion occurs. This cycle continues until the final shape is achieved.

• Materials used: Polymers, ceramics, metals
• Applications: Industrial purposes, research, bio-applications
• Advantages: High quality of the final part, high geometrical accuracy, flexibility in feedstock material
• Challenges: Residual thermal stresses, unwanted porosity due to using bonding materials
• Accuracy: 50–200 µm
• Post-Processing: Sintering, heat treatment

4. Sheet lamination

Sheet lamination is another AM process, which assembles metal sheets on top of each other to form a 3D object. In this process, different glues, welding, and brazing can hold the sheets of material in place for a longer time, but ultrasonic welding is the most efficient and the most common. The sheets are fed into the building area in the needed geometry, and an ultrasonic head punches them against the previous layer and lightly welds them together. This process is cheap and fast, while the second material removal is needed after the parts are done.

• Materials used: Polymers, metals, and ceramics
• Applications: Electronics, tissue fabrication
• Advantages: High speed of fabrication, low residual stresses
• Challenges: Low accuracy of the final product, the chance of delamination under harsh thermal/mechanical conditions
• Accuracy: Depends on the thickness of the sheets
• Post-Processing: Internal material residue removal, clamping in some cases that glue is used

5. Photo-polymerization

Photo-polymerization is a process employing UV light to cure polymers layer-by-layer, and the processing speed is high while it keeps the process’s simplicity. In addition to polymers, researchers have tried to mix the polymers with ceramic particles to produce stronger mechanical objects with bio-applications.

• Materials used: Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), epoxy, polystyrene, acrylate
• Applications: Biomedical, electronics, alpha prototyping
• Advantages: High geometrical accuracy, high surface quality
• Challenges: Limitation in feedstock material selection, low fabrication speed
• Accuracy: <10 µm
• Post-Processing: Slight deburring

6. Extrusion

The extrusion method is mostly used for thermoplastics and requires high operating temperatures. As a result, the final parts usually suffer from high porosity, but the low processing cost and flexibility in geometry increase its applications in making different mechanical parts. In addition, some researchers have tried to make ceramic-reinforced polymers with this method.

• Materials used: Thermoplastics such as ABS, Polylactic acid (PLA), polyethylene, polyether ketone, polycarbonate
• Applications: Visual aids, educational models, alpha prototypes, tooling models
• Advantages: Simplicity, low cost, high speed
• Challenges: Low geometrical accuracy, low surface finish, only for polymers and thermoplastic materials
• Accuracy: ~100 µm
• Post-Processing: Nil

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Thanks to its numerous benefits, such as time and material saving, rapid prototyping, high efficiency, and decentralized production methods, AM plays a principal role in industry 4.0 that employs the integration of smart manufacturing systems and developed information technologies.

The additive manufacturing technique was first employed by Charles Hull for the stereolithography (SLA) process in 1986. However, over three decades, many other printing methods were discovered and several improvements, transforming the manufacturing and logistics processes. This encouraged the market for more investments in various industries, such as biomedical, aerospace, and automotive.

Notably, there is a significant growth in the investment in AM technology from $4 billion in 2014 to over $21 billion by 2020. AM benefits attract much attention in manufacturing, such as mass-customized production, prototyping, sustainable production, and minimized lead time and cost.

Top research papers on Additive Manufacturing

1. Additive Manufacturing (AM) at Industry 4.0: A Review by Diogo José Horst (2018) – This paper presents the fundamental principles of 3D printing, its roles in industry 4.0 in saving time and cost, and the benefits, e.g., higher flexibility and individualization.

2. Additive manufacturing (3D printing): A review of materials, methods, applications, and challenges by Tuan D. Ngo (2018) – This paper covers the main advantage of additive manufacturing in fast prototyping and its capabilities for producing complex structures, mass customization, freedom of design, and waste minimization. It also explains the industrial revolution of additive manufacturing in aerospace, biomedical, building, and protective structures and the fast transition from conventional machining and traditional methods.

3. Methods and Materials for Smart Manufacturing: Additive Manufacturing, Internet of Things, Flexible Sensors and Soft Robotics by Arkadeep Kumar (2018) – The paper presents various additive manufacturing applications for factories in the future. It also talks about industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing systems using 3D printing and developing and innovation in manufacturing methods and material using additive manufacturing.

4. Advanced Material Strategies for Next-Generation Additive Manufacturing by Jinke Chang (2018) – This paper talks about the application of AM in various fields and industrial productions, e.g., microelectronic and biomedical devices. It also introduces the novel additive manufacturing process for multiple materials, including smart materials, biomaterials, and conductive materials.

5. Additive Manufacturing, Cloud-Based 3D Printing, and Associated Services—Overview by Felix W. Baumann (2017) – This covers the application of Cloud Manufacturing (CM) in the concept of a service-oriented approach over the internet and the historical development in the field of CM and AM in the smart manufacturing process between 2002 to 2006.

6. The role of additive manufacturing in the era of Industry 4.0 by Ugur M Dilberoglu (2017) – This paper covers the recent development of the additive manufacturing process, the benefits of additive manufacturing in design improvement, and industry 4.0. and the current technological methods and highlights in the additive manufacturing process.

7. Smart manufacturing: Characteristics, technologies, and enabling factors by Sameer Mittal (2017) – This paper reviews all published works on various applied technologies and processes related to the smart manufacturing topic and a comprehensive list of the influential factors associated with smart manufacturing and industry 4.0.

8. The rise of 3-D printing: The advantages of additive manufacturing over traditional manufacturing by Mohsen Attaran (2017) – This presents the future of additive manufacturing and identifying the challenges, technologies, and trends, the benefits of additive manufacturing compared with conventional machining and discuss its influence on the supply chain process and the potential of additive manufacturing and impact on the various industry.

9. Industrial Additive Manufacturing: A manufacturing systems perspective by Daniel R. Eyers (2017) – This paper covers the current applications of the additive manufacturing process in the industry, various methods including mechanisms, controls, and activities, and the development in industrial applications and the potentials and opportunities to improve the future of manufacturing.

10. Industrie 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing A Review of Research Issues and Application Examples by Klaus-Dieter Thoben (2017) – This paper presents an overview of smart manufacturing in industry 4.0. It also identifies the current and the future states of technology, besides offering an analysis of cyber-physical systems (CPS) and investigating the potential and applications of this system in production, design, and maintenance processes.

11. Material issues in additive manufacturing: A review by Sunpreet Singh (2017) – This paper presents a review of the biomedical applications of the additive manufacturing process, an introduction to Additive Bio-Manufacturing (ABM) technique for having a safer production, and review the helpful papers on this topic.

12. The evolution and future of manufacturing: A review by Behzad Esmaeilian (2016) – This explores a study of the manufacturing systems and all published works on this topic and the future of manufacturing processes focusing on design development sustainability issues as people, profit, planet.

13. Smart Manufacturing: Past Research, Present Findings, and Future Directions by Hyoung Seok Kang (2016) – This paper analyzes smart manufacturing in the past, current applications, and future by investigating various research papers. It also examines a new paradigm of Information and communications technology (ICT) and manufacturing technologies in industrial revolution 4.0 or smart manufacturing.

14. Additive manufacturing management: a review and future research agenda by Mojtaba khorram (2016) – This covers the multidimensional, systematic, and quantitative analysis to discover the structure of the additive manufacturing process in various scopes, including management, economic, and business. It also investigates the eight principle spectra of the research, including the additive manufacturing process, supply chain management, production design and cost model, strategies challenges, manufacturing systems, sustainability, innovation, and business model.

15. Current Standards Landscape for Smart Manufacturing Systems by Yan Lu (2016) – This report reviews the body of relevant standards upon which future smart manufacturing systems will rely. This report allows manufacturing practitioners to better understand those standards applicable to integrating smart manufacturing technologies. The report concludes that existing manufacturing standards are insufficient to fully enable smart manufacturing, especially in cybersecurity, cloud-based manufacturing services, supply chain integration, and data analytics.

16. Opportunities for Sustainable Manufacturing in Industry 4.0 by Tim Stock (2016) – This presents various sustainability issues in smart manufacturing industry 4.0 and development in sustainable manufacturing and provides solutions in the manufacturing processes.

17. Additive manufacturing and sustainability: an exploratory study of the advantages and challenges by Simon Ford (2016) – This paper covers an overview of advanced manufacturing processes and technologies such as additive manufacturing process, and benefits and challenges of the additive manufacturing process on sustainability issues in terms of business model, value chains, and innovation.

18. The status, challenges, and future of additive manufacturing in engineering by Wei Gao (2015) – This paper shares comprehensive knowledge of the additive manufacturing process, current challenges, achievements and the trend of the future, and the potential of the additive manufacturing process to achieve “print-it-all” image as the primary goal of the AM process shortly.

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