A Review of Test Artifacts for Additive Manufacturing

Published

May 24, 2012

Author(s)

Shawn P. Moylan, April L. Cooke, Kevin K. Jurrens, John A. Slotwinski, M A. Donmez

Abstract

A standardized test part can be used to quantitatively evaluate the performance of a machine or process. This document reviews existing test artifacts used to characterize additive processes that are reported in the literature. Several aspects of the test artifacts and their use for performance characterization are discussed, including the purposes of the studies, important features found in various test pieces, and some characteristics that are desirable in test pieces. The works were divided into four categories: comparing processes for decision making, evaluating individual processes, evaluating metal-based processes, and miscellaneous. Many of the test parts have a similar characteristics because much of the research builds off of the findings of previous research, and many researchers may have been following "rules" put forth by in earlier works. Most of the test artifact designs have various "real" features atop a square or rectangular base. The main alternative to the square-base, multiple-feature artifacts appears to be a smaller, simpler artifact that is built at multiple positions and/or multiple orientations throughout the work volume. The proposed test parts were as large as 240 mm x 240 mm in lateral dimensions and contained features as small as 0.2 mm in dimension.

Citation

NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR) - 7858

Report Number

7858

NIST Pub Series

NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR)

Pub Type

NIST Pubs

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.7858

Keywords

Additive Manufacturing, Test Artifacts, Benchmarking, Rapid Prototyping

Citation

Moylan, S. , Cooke, A. , Jurrens, K. , Slotwinski, J. and Donmez, M. (2012), A Review of Test Artifacts for Additive Manufacturing, NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, [online], https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.7858 (Accessed October 10, 2025)