Open Access

Stefan Junk, Matthias Herr

• Additive manufacturing has increasingly found its way into business practice and is a relevant subject of research. In this context, AM using pellets or granulates is a relatively new process that still needs to be explored. This process is sustainable because it supports the elimination of energy-intensive process steps such as filament production. It also opens up new design possibilitiesAdditive manufacturing has increasingly found its way into business practice and is a relevant subject of research. In this context, AM using pellets or granulates is a relatively new process that still needs to be explored. This process is sustainable because it supports the elimination of energy-intensive process steps such as filament production. It also opens up new design possibilities because it can process much larger amounts of material per time than many conventional additive manufacturing processes. The aim of this paper is to compare this Fused Granulate Fabrication process with the filament-based Fused Filament Fabrication process and to discuss potential applications on the basis of specific advantages and disadvantages. Both filament-based and pellet-based additive processes are compared and evaluated on the basis of technical criteria, sustainability and cost. The evaluation has shown that pellet-based processes have some advantages in terms of sustainability and material selection. These advantages are offset by disadvantages in terms of processing. This analysis therefore provides a basis for the selection of a suitable process based on various criteria.…