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The design process of a bio-model involves multiple factors including data acquisition technique, material requirement, resolution of the printing technique, cost-effectiveness of the printing process and end-use requirements. This paper aims to compare and highlight the effects of these design factors on the printing outcome of bio-models.

Different data sources including engineering drawing, computed tomography (CT), and optical coherence tomography (OCT) were converted to a printable data format. Three different bio-models, namely, an ophthalmic model, a retina model and a distal tibia model, were printed using two different techniques, namely, PolyJet and fused deposition modelling. The process flow and 3D printed models were analysed.

The data acquisition and 3D printing process affect the overall printing resolution. The design process flows using different data sources were established and the bio-models were printed successfully.

Data acquisition techniques contained inherent noise data and resulted in inaccuracies during data conversion.

This work showed that the data acquisition and conversion technique had a significant effect on the quality of the bio-model blueprint and subsequently the printing outcome. In addition, important design factors of bio-models were highlighted such as material requirement and the cost-effectiveness of the printing technique. This paper provides a systematic discussion for future development of an engineering design process in three-dimensional (3D) printed bio-models.

This paper aims to provide a review on the process of additive manufacturing of ceramic materials, focusing on partial and full melting of ceramic powder by a high-energy laser beam without the use of binders.

Selective laser sintering or melting (SLS/SLM) techniques are first introduced, followed by analysis of results from silica (SiO₂), zirconia (ZrO₂) and ceramic-reinforced metal matrix composites processed by direct laser sintering and melting.

At the current state of technology, it is still a challenge to fabricate dense ceramic components directly using SLS/SLM. Critical challenges encountered during direct laser melting of ceramic will be discussed, including deposition of ceramic powder layer, interaction between laser and powder particles, dynamic melting and consolidation mechanism of the process and the presence of residual stresses in ceramics processed via SLS/SLM.

Despite the challenges, SLS/SLM still has the potential in fabrication of ceramics. Additional research is needed to understand and establish the optimal interaction between the laser beam and ceramic powder bed for full density part fabrication. Looking into the future, other melting-based techniques for ceramic and composites are presented, along with their potential applications.

Soft robotics is currently a rapidly growing new field of robotics whereby the robots are fundamentally soft and elastically deformable. Fabrication of soft robots is currently challenging and highly time- and labor-intensive. Recent advancements in three-dimensional (3D) printing of soft materials and multi-materials have become the key to enable direct manufacturing of soft robots with sophisticated designs and functions. Hence, this paper aims to review the current 3D printing processes and materials for soft robotics applications, as well as the potentials of 3D printing technologies on 3D printed soft robotics.

The paper reviews the polymer 3D printing techniques and materials that have been used for the development of soft robotics. Current challenges to adopting 3D printing for soft robotics are also discussed. Next, the potentials of 3D printing technologies and the future outlooks of 3D printed soft robotics are presented.

This paper reviews five different 3D printing techniques and commonly used materials. The advantages and disadvantages of each technique for the soft robotic application are evaluated. The typical designs and geometries used by each technique are also summarized. There is an increasing trend of printing shape memory polymers, as well as multiple materials simultaneously using direct ink writing and material jetting techniques to produce robotics with varying stiffness values that range from intrinsically soft and highly compliant to rigid polymers. Although the recent work is done is still limited to experimentation and prototyping of 3D printed soft robotics, additive manufacturing could ultimately be used for the end-use and production of soft robotics.

The paper provides the current trend of how 3D printing techniques and materials are used particularly in the soft robotics application. The potentials of 3D printing technology on the soft robotic applications and the future outlooks of 3D printed soft robotics are also presented.

This paper presents a new indirect scaffold fabrication method for soft tissue based on rapid prototyping (RP) technique and preliminary characterization for collagen scaffolds.

This paper introduces the processing steps for indirect scaffold fabrication based on the inkjet printing technology. The scaffold morphology was characterized by scanning electron microscopy. The designs of the scaffolds are presented and discussed.

Theoretical studies on the inkjet printing process are presented. Previous research showed that the availability of biomaterial that can be processed on a commercial RP system is very limited. This is due mainly to the unfavorable machine processing parameters such as high working temperature and restrictions on the form of raw material input. The process described in this paper overcomes these problems while retaining the strength of RP techniques. Technical challenges of the process are presented as well.

Harnessing the ability of RP techniques to control the internal morphology of the scaffold, it is possible to couple the design of the scaffold with controlled cell‐culture condition to modulate the behavior of the cells. However, this is just initial work, further development will be needed.

This method enables the designer to manipulate the scaffold at three different length scales, namely the macroscopic scale, intermediate scale and the cellular scale.

The work presented in this paper focuses on important processing steps for indirect scaffold fabrication using thermal‐sensitive natural biomaterial. A mathematical model is proposed to estimate the height of a printed line.

Although many researchers have widely studied additive manufacturing (AM) as one of the most important industrial revolutions, few have presented a bibliometric analysis of the published studies in this area. This paper aims to evaluate AM research trends based on 4607 publications most cited from year 2010 to 2020.

The research methodology is bibliometric indicators and network analysis, including analysis based on keywords, citation analysis, productive journal, related published papers and authors indicators. Two free available software were employed VOSviewer and Bibexcel.

Keywords analysis results indicate that among the AM processes, Selective Laser Melting and Fused Deposition Modeling techniques, are the two processes ranked on top of the techniques employed and studied with 35.76% and 20.09% respectively. The citation analysis by VOSviewer software, reveals that the medical applications field and the fabrication of metal parts are the areas that interest researchers greatly. Different new research niches, as pharmaceutical industry, digital construction and food fabrication are growing topics in AM scientific works. This study reveals that journals “Materials & design”, “Advanced materials”, “Acs applied materials & interfaces”, “Additive manufacturing”, “Advanced functional materials” and “Biofabrication” are the most productive and influential in AM scientific research.

The results and conclusions of this work can be used as indicators of trends in AM research and/or as prospects for future studies in this area.