Field-assisted additive manufacturing of polymeric composites

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a transformative manufacturing approach capable of building parts with freeform and complex geometries. Polymers come with a wide range of material properties and can be processed via several different AM processes. Adding anisotropy to polymeric composites opens new applications for polymer AM by earning additional functionality and creating composites with tailored properties. One of the new approaches in creating tailored anisotropic composites is pairing external fields that can exert force on fillers and manipulate them inside polymeric matrices. Four main types of external fields - shear, acoustic, magnetic, and electrical - are devised to control filler orientation and concentration in polymeric composites. This review highlights the recent research advances in field-assisted additive manufacturing technologies with the goal of creating polymeric composites with controlled anisotropy orientation and concentration.