Near-net-shape is an industrial manufacturing technique. As the name implies, the initial production of the item is very close to the final, or ''net'', shape. This reduces the need for

surface finishing Surface finishing is a broad range of industrial processes that alter the surface of a manufactured item to achieve a certain property. Finishing processes may be employed to: improve appearance, adhesion or wettability, solderability, corrosion re ...

. By minimizing the use of finishing methods like

machining Machining is a process in which a material (often metal) is cut to a desired final shape and size by a controlled material-removal process. The processes that have this common theme are collectively called subtractive manufacturing, which utilizes ...

or grinding, near-net-shape production eliminates more than two-thirds of the production costs in some industries.

Processes

The following are various near-net-shape processes categorized by material.

Ceramics

Gelcasting Gel casting is a direct foaming technique used to produce ceramic and polymeric scaffolds. History Gel casting was developed in Canada in the 1960s and ever since it became an interesting manufacturing forming process for near-net-shape, very large ...

* Ceramic injection molding * Spray forming *Structural ceramic production

Composites

Lanxide process The Lanxide process, also known as pressureless metal infiltration, is a way of producing metal-matrix composite materials by a process of partial reaction; the process involves a careful choice of initial alloy (usually aluminium with about 3% ma ...

Plastics

Injection moulding Injection moulding (U.S. spelling: injection molding) is a manufacturing process for producing parts by injecting molten material into a mould, or mold. Injection moulding can be performed with a host of materials mainly including metals (for ...

Rapid prototyping Rapid prototyping is a group of techniques used to quickly fabricate a scale model of a physical part or assembly using three-dimensional computer aided design (CAD) data. Construction of the part or assembly is usually done using 3D printin ...

Metals

* Casting ** Permanent mold casting * Powder metallurgy *

Linear friction welding Friction welding (FRW) is a solid-state welding process that generates heat through mechanical friction between workpieces in relative motion to one another, with the addition of a lateral force called "upset" to plastically displace and fuse the m ...

* Friction welding * Metal injection molding *

* Spray forming *

Superplastic forming Superplastic forming is an industrial process used for creating precise and complex components out of superplastic materials. Process The material is first heated up to promote superplasticity. For titanium alloys e.g. Ti 6Al 4V and some stainless ...

* Cold forming *

Semi-solid metal casting Semi-solid metal casting (SSM) is a near net shape variant of die casting. The process is used today with non-ferrous metals, such as aluminium, copper,Young, p. 1. and magnesium, but also can work with higher temperature alloys for which no curr ...

* Photochemical machining Metalworking terminology Plastics industry {{Metalworking-stub