Within the last decade several industrialized countries have stressed the importance of
advanced manufacturing to their economies. Many of these plans have highlighted the development
of additive manufacturing techniques such as 3D printing which as of 2018 are still in their
infancy. The objective is to develop superior products produced at lower overall operational
costs. For these goals to be realized a deep understanding of the essential ingredients
comprising the materials involved in additive manufacturing is needed. The combination of
rigorous material modeling theories coupled with the dramatic increase of computational power
can potentially play a significant role in the analysis control and design of many emerging
additive manufacturing processes. Specialized materials and the precise design of their
properties are key factors in the processes. Specifically particle-functionalized materials
play a central role in this field in three main regimes: (1) to enhance overall filament-based
material properties by embedding particles within a binder which is then passed through a
heating element and the deposited onto a surface (2) to functionalize inks by adding particles
to freely flowing solvents forming a mixture which is then deposited onto a surface and (3) to
directly deposit particles as dry powders onto surfaces and then to heat them with a laser
e-beam or other external source in order to fuse them into place. The goal of these processes
is primarily to build surface structures which are extremely difficult to construct using
classical manufacturing methods. The objective of this monograph is introduce the readers to
basic techniques which can allow them to rapidly develop and analyze particulate-based
materials needed in such additive manufacturing processes. This monograph is broken into two
main parts: Continuum Method (CM) approaches and Discrete Element Method (DEM) approaches. The
materials associated with methods (1) and (2) are closely related types of continua (particles
embedded in a continuous binder) and are treated using continuum approaches. The materials in
method (3) which are of a discrete particulate character are analyzed using discrete element
methods.
