This case shows the potential for additive manufacturing to work in combination with conventional manufacturing processes in a hybrid fashion to harness the design freedom possible and already well understood with AM whilst being conscious of cost and lead time when manufacturing turbo machinery parts.
Furthermore, this methodology can be applied to various applications in other industries where aspects of a part may be suited to the benefits of AM, but large areas of the part would not make commercial sense - an example here being large mold tool and die inserts with conformal cooling channels at their upper surfaces.
