The TCT Additive Manufacturing
Machine Guide 2026

Metal powder bed fusion processes commonly include techniques such as direct metal laser sintering (DMLS), electron beam melting (EBM), and selective laser melting (SLM). A roller or blade spreads new layers of powder over previous layers, and a high-power laser or electron beam selectively melts the material to form each cross-section.

Electron beam PBF (EB-PBF) operates in vacuum at elevated temperatures, significantly reducing residual stresses and often eliminating the need for support structures — making it particularly suited to reactive and refractory metals such as titanium, tungsten, and nickel superalloys.

Directed energy deposition (DED) uses a focused energy source to melt material as it is deposited, enabling both new part creation and repair of existing components. Hybrid AM systems combine additive and subtractive methods in the same machine.

In the polymer powder bed fusion process, a high-power laser is used to selectively sinter powdered thermoplastic material to form each layer. Selective laser sintering (SLS) requires no additional support structures, as the surrounding powder provides sufficient support throughout the build. The build platform is within a temperature-controlled chamber, often containing nitrogen.

Polymer material extrusion (FDM/FFF) draws material through a heated nozzle and deposits it layer by layer. At the large-format end, pellet extrusion systems deposit material at rates measured in hundreds of pounds per hour, producing molds, tooling, and structural parts from engineering thermoplastics and composites.

Vat photopolymerisation involves a vat of liquid photopolymer resin, in which the model is constructed through the use of an ultraviolet (UV) light to cure specific areas. The build platform moves the object downwards after the curing of each new layer. Newer hybrid approaches combine SLA and DLP techniques to eliminate trade-offs between speed, surface finish, and throughput.

Material jetting deposits droplets of photopolymer material which are cured by UV light, enabling multi-material and full-colour printing with high detail resolution.

Sheet lamination processes use sheets or ribbons of material, bound together through various methods. Composite-based additive manufacturing (CBAM) combines long-fibre sheets of carbon fibre or fiberglass with high-performance polymer powders, producing parts with strength-to-weight ratios that compete with aluminium — without tooling or resin handling.

These emerging processes target specific performance niches where conventional layer-by-layer AM approaches cannot match the required material properties or production economics.

Post-processing remains the most labour-intensive stage of the additive manufacturing workflow. As AM moves from prototyping to production, the bottleneck increasingly sits not at the printer but at what happens after — identification, sorting, quality inspection, surface finishing, and packaging.

Abrasive flow machining (AFM) addresses internal surfaces and complex geometries inaccessible to conventional finishing. Automated part handling systems use AI-driven vision and sorting to replace manual labour in high-mix production environments. Buyers scaling AM output should evaluate whether post-processing is their true production constraint.