Research progress on additive manufacturing technology in diamond tool preparation

Due to the high hardness and excellent wear resistance, the diamond is widely used in the preparation of cutting and other machining tools. Compared to the traditional manufacturing technology, the additive manufacturing can fundamentally solve the problems of innovative design and efficient fabrication for the complex structural components, which is known as a potential effective method for the preparation of high-performance diamond tools. The basic principles and characteristics of the major additive manufacturing technologies were introduced in this paper, such as selective laser sintering (SLS), selective laser melting (SLM), stereo lightgrapy apparatus (SLA), direct ink writing (DIW), and fused deposition modeling (FDM). The applicability and performance of the manufactured tools prepared by additive manufacturing were analyzed, such as diamond grinding wheels, diamond drill bits, and diamond saw blade tools. Finally, the typical problems and the corresponding solutions in the forming process of additive manufactured diamond tools were summarized and provided, respectively.