Safety and Workflow Considerations for Modern Metal Additive Manufacturing Facilities

There is a strong desire within the metal additive manufacturing industry to immediately leverage research discoveries to improve process and part quality. Rapid transfer of knowledge from a university setting to a factory floor is greatly enhanced if researchers have direct access to the same type of equipment being used by industry. Challengingly, the operation of much of this equipment requires specially designed facilities—the specifications for which are not well reported in the prior literature. Informed by their recent experience of constructing a new metal additive manufacturing research laboratory, the authors enumerate many of the design challenges they faced and the solutions they implemented.