Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies are an exciting area of the modern industrial revolution and have applications in instrumentation, engineering, medicine, electronics, aerospace industry, and other fields. They include stereolithography, electrolytic deposition, thermal and laser-based 3D printing, 3D-IC fabrication technologies, etc. and are booming nowadays owing to their ability to fabricate products with unique characteristics that cannot be made with traditional fabrication techniques. AM technologies are rapidly developing and becoming increasingly less expensive. AM also enables cost-effective production of customized geometry and parts by direct fabrication from 3D data and mathematical models. However, to further the progress in the emerging area and empower scientists, engineers, and designers to fully implement the novel processes' capabilities, there is a need for a systematic study of mechanical design and analysis for AM technologies.
Despite much progress in the area of AM technologies, problems of mechanical design and analysis for AM fabricated parts yet remain to be solved. So far, three main problems can be isolated. The first problem is the onset of residual stresses, which inevitably occur in the manufacturing process and can lead to failure of the parts during fabrication or in the subsequent operation. The second problem, which is closely related to the first, is the distortion of the final shape of AM fabricated parts; for thin-walled parts, this can lead to enormous deviation from the technical design parameters. The third problem is to devise technical and technological solutions aimed at improving existing AM technologies and developing new ones on the basis of theoretical and experimental studies. To solve these problems, one should develop fundamentally new mathematical models and methods for mechanical design and analysis suitable for modern AM technologies.