Additive manufacturing as a prototyping tool for materials discovery

To accelerate materials discovery, it is becoming commonplace to leverage machine learning tool kits to screen phase space for new and useful alloy compositions. But, the potential hits still need to be fabricated for testing – ideally, in a speedy and cost-effective manner. It seems to me that additive manufacturing serves these requirements well.

For example, it seems feasible that a plurality of distinct compositions could be provided on a single sample (e.g., in and/or between each printed layer) and potentially over a range of different processing parameters (e.g., laser power, scanning speed etc.). The sample could then be appropriately sectioned and characterised using known micro-scale testing techniques.

Might additive manufacturing turn “full circle” as a prototyping tool?