1 Introduction

Additive manufacturing (AM) has increases attractiveness among manufacturer, scientists, researchers, industries, and customers due its flexibility and simplicity [1] it used in many fields [2] It can be used to create fully custom made, for topological optimization, and to form a complex design and for metallic components [3]. The concepts of rapid prototype and 3D printing have commenced in the last of the twentieth century [4] and it has begun to strive the convectional process as of the extraordinary material performance [5], exceptional surface finish [6] it could give good opportunities in advanced manufacturing [7]. AM allows the manufacture of complex component design, it can improve the performance of the products [8] through the process of building materials to produce parts from three-dimensional model data, usually layer upon layer [8,9,10,11]. This review is used described about additive manufacturing 3D printing and 4D printing applications in different industries. The focal point of this comparative review is to show how the additive manufacturing technology and its process is gained more attention over conventional manufacturing technology. The application of 3Dprinting and 4D in different manufacturing Industries like Aerospace, military, medical, automotive, Energy and food industry were briefly discussed.

During this reviews, different published papers on the focused area were collected and reviewed. A total of 119 research works published on Additive manufacturing technology based on 3D and 4D printing techniques were assessed.

1.1 Overview of 3D printing and 4D printing additive manufacture

The AM technologies were earlier considered as rapid prototy** (RP) [12], which was first developed in 1987, and Stereolithography was the one first commercialized through the 3D system Corporation [13,14,15]. Its processes involved changing the polymer liquid state into a solid through ultraviolet (UV) light From 2000 to 2005, industries considered RP technologies as RM systems [16,17,18]. In 2009, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) [19, 20], and the Alliance for Standardization (ISO) called RP an AM that's completely opposite to the traditional methodologies. The term AM was formally adopted in 2009 by ASTM F42 Technical Committee members, and they call it by another name, “three-dimensional (3D) printing” [21]. Manufacturing system revolutionary like 3D and 4D printing are plays serious role in product design and developments [22]. It helps to minimize the price of development and working process time through decreasing bottlenecks and may be a valuable tool for rapid development [23]. Rapid prototy** uses the automatic generation of an entity with the assistance of a computer model [24], There are many phases to a successful AM application system: mathematical modeling, conceptual modeling, and model architecture are a few of them [11]. The primary step is the construction of a conceptual model [25, 26], to reduced process time [27]. AM techniques are classified into several categories based on the type of material and process. It is illustrated in the given Figs. 1 and 2 as below.

  1. I.

    Vat photopolymerization

    A photopolymerization techniques some times, also called Stereolithography. As a primary material, it uses photosensitivity to create solid parts. A range of energy sources are often used, depending on the chemical conformation of the fabric [28].

  2. II.

    Powder bed fusion processes (PBF)

    Powder bed fusion processes are the most commonly known AM techniques. A powder material is composed in a very fine bed, and a heat source is working to provide fusion in the powder particle. After the fusion of the complete layer within the bed, a powder layer is added over the other bed for creating parts from heated sources [29, 30].

  3. III.

    Direct metal laser sintering (DMLS)

    Selective laser melting (SLM), selective laser sintering (SLS), electromagnetic radiation melting, and selective heat sintering are the main processes of PBF techniques [31].

  4. IV.

    Material extrusion based systems (ME)

    This process uses nozzles for extruding a melted material, which solidifies within the designed shape and bonds to the previously extruded material. Foremost of the common methods of ME are fused deposition modeling [31, 32].

  5. V.

    Material jetting (MJ)

    Material jetting (MJ) additive manufacturing technology is used to form excellent geometrical accuracy, smooth surfaces, and a variety of materials [32,33,34].

  6. VI.

    Binder jetting (BJ)

    Binder-jetting processes are very similar to powder bed fusion processes, but rather work with a heat source. A print head helps deliver a binder to the spots when fusion is required. After completing the formation of the first layer, a replacement layer of powder material follows for each successive body [35].

  7. VII.

    Directed energy deposition processes (DED)

    This process utilizes a narrow, focused beam of energy to melt the material being deposited. This process differs from other techniques because it isn't pre-laid in a very powdery bed [36].

  8. VIII.

    Sheet lamination processes (SL)

    It involves the formation, sha**, and bonding of fabric sheets. Also, it is conducted by trimming the fabric sheets into the specified dimensions and gluing them together to form an object. The process, mostly known as ultrasonic additive manufacturing, produces metal objects by ultrasonic welding [36, 37].

Fig. 1
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Classification of AM techniques supported the sort of base materials used

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Fig. 2
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Categorization of AM processes within the current state-of-the-art [43]

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Materials processed using AM practices sometimes face complex thermal processing cycles. As a result, it needs to focus on the microstructure, post-processing, and material behaviors of AM-fabricated parts [38, 39]. The AM techniques and materials processing methods basically depend on the behaviors and nature of materials [40]. This technology of production methods allows solid or partial infill materials [41, 42].

1.2 3D printing and 4D printing

Currently, researchers are focused on 4D printing, which has yet one more dimension “D” than the previous 3D printing technology [44]. The method of 4D printing is basically the same as with 3D printers, and therefore, the computer is working on the same procedure to fabricate material in continuous layers until a 3D structure is formed [44,45,46,47,48]. Even though 3D printing has the command to print layers of fabric successively, 4D printing enhances a definite geometric code because the method supports the angles and proportions of the determined size and shape [49]. It helps to form memories and directions on how to move or adapt in a certain condition [50]. Recently, a new technology that allows dynamic changes in the structure of components was introduced, known as 4D printing technology [51]. The idea was started at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s by Skylar Tibbits, the International Design co-director and founding father of the Self-Assembly Lab Housed Center [52]. A 4D printing system gives the fourth coordinate of your time by introducing the fourth-dimensional parameter on the customized three-dimensional techniques [34, 53]. Now days the state of the art of 3DP material development includes the utilization of electric fiber, precious metals, and composites [54], among numerous others [55,56,57]. The manufacturing process is gaining tremendous attention because such smart and sensitive technologies have become easily implemented in any industry.

1.2.1 Process of the 3D and 4D printing

In Fig. 3, the fundamental elements of 4D printing, processes, and system categories were described. 4D printing is based on the material shape memory effect and the ability of the materials to respond to external stimuli [24, 58]. Many processes are considered to utilize 3D printing parts; some of these procedures are 3D solid objects, CAD models, 3D scanning technologies, standard triangle language location (STL) formats, and customized. Also, it can involve improvements in post-processing, the strength, and other qualities of material properties [59,60,61].

Fig. 3
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Differences between 3 and 4D printing technologies [62]

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2 Material and methods of 3D and 4D printing technology

2.1 Materials for 3D and 4D printing technology

Material scientists are keys to empathetic developments in additive manufacturing. Recently, most of the 4D printing systems have used special and smart materials that are environmentally sensitive, as shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 4
figure 4

Fundamental elements of 4DP [32]

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As Fig. 4 indicates the critical features of smart materials are self-sense, self-responsiveness, shape memory, self-repair and healing, self-adapting, and multifunctional [63]. Also, different researchers classified smart materials as shape-memory materials and shape-changing materials [64]. A shape memory material has the flexibility to recover to its original form. When stimuli are applied, this process is called the form-memory effect (SME) [65]. Mainly, thermoplastic material, polymer, and composite material are preferable for both 3D and 4D printing components, as indicated in Fig. 5 below.

Fig. 5
figure 5

General overview of current research materials for the AM approaching era [67]

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2.1.1 Smart materials used in the 3D and 4D printing techniques

Smart materials are major elements of 4D printing because it delivers extra flexibility, are easy to expand, and have specific stimuli [50, 63]. Moreover, 4DP may be a progressive development of 3DP structures in terms of saved time, waste minimization, surface quality, and multi-purpose manufacturing.

In Table 1, some basic parameters of 3D and 4D printing are described. Smart material fabrications through 4D printing are responsive to exterior stimuli such as temperature, humidity, water, magnetic systems, and pH values. Pressure level, embedded circuitry, or a mixture of those stimuli In this case, 3D-printed structures are dynamic; either, their size or functionalities can change with time. These processes are growing from the birth phase, and it's continuously evolving [57, 64,65,66].

Table 1 Clearly to understand the main gaps among the three-dimensional printing (3D) and (4D) fourth-dimensional
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2.2 Methods of 3D and 4D printing technology

The basic concept of 4D printing is to improve 3D printing manufacturing methods with a completely new feature [69], over-presenting extra coordinates [70]. The working procedure is comparable to that of 3D printing. A digital file is generated, formerly printed layer by layer [71]. It uses the slicing task that used to form partition on digital 3D model into several horizontal zones. 4D printing are the main characterized to water and humidity as a dependent feature, Temperature dependent feature, Light dependent features, Electrical field and flux dependent [63]. Additive manufacturing technologies for 4D printing are classified into numerous techniques [72]. Extrusion-based methods, ink deposition, direct ink writing (DIW), and inkjet, as well as vat photopolymerization and digital light processing (DLP) [73] (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6
figure 6

Classifications of 4D printing technologies

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The extra dimension is expounded to the change of the printed parts over time, as “time” has emerged within the 3D printing system to create new formations [74]. The major benefit of using 4DP is size reduction, improvements in flexibility, and environmental-sensitive material [71]. This can be achieved through computational folding, which may be the basic source of 4DP. In other ways, stimuli-responsive materials are considered fundamental options for 4D printed structures [75, 76]. All the processes require special materials, novel tools, and new approaches. Some special characteristics of 4D printing are identified in the following Fig. 7.

Fig. 7
figure 7

Characteristics of 4D printing technology [77]

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3 Role and application of additive manufacturing

3.1 The role of additive manufacturing in aerospace

In the space science industry, AM is used to reduce production costs and lead times, as well as minimize the mass component. Time is one of the most significant parameters for AM in the aerospace industry. For instance, the freedoms presented by using AM techniques in order to produce the A320 hinge bracket aboard spacecraft and aircraft are illustrated in the following Fig. 8 [78,79,80,81].

Fig. 8
figure 8

Indicated production of AM technology in Airbus part [2].

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3.2 The role of additive manufacturing in medical

This production technology is used for bioprinting, which is applicable in medical material processing [82]. These manufacturing techniques may help to increase people’s human life style by making synthetic organs, surgical equipment, dental implants, orthopedics, and fast surgery [83,84,85,86]. Synthetic living tissue and living cells can be established in the laboratory. Additionally, scanned data, computed tomography (CT), is categorized in the first order to establish 3D models for the medical industry [87, 88]. In other words, the technology supports the daily operations of the medical sector, like pre-surgical planning, Siamese twins [89], diagnosis, and increasing the sample's sensitivity in biomedical, prosthetic, and orthopedics prosthetic [89,90,, 91] as shown in Fig. 9.

Fig. 9
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Typical process flow for medical models of 4-dimensional printing, developed from literature [92]

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3.3 The role of additive manufacturing in automotive

In the twenty-first century, fast fabrication and customer satisfaction are becoming major criteria, which provide an important competitive advantage [80]. In the automotive industry, design and development, delivery, and flexibility in production are the main concerns [93]. Therefore, advanced manufacturing is used to accelerate the process by optimizing and customizing the production process. AM processes like FDM and selective laser sintering (SLS) are currently suitable for the rising automotive industry in several ways [94,95,95, 101, 102].

3.5 The role of additive manufacturing in industry 4.0

AM and artificial intelligence are both becoming the trademarks of the Internet of Things (IOT). This forced the system to mass-customize and develop non-traditional manufacturing methods [103]. As a result, 3D printing has become an appropriate manufacturing process. Since it has a high ability to create sophisticated objects and shapes [43, 104, 105], according to recent researchers, this manufacturing method is time-saving, cost-effective, process-efficient, free of emissions, and environmentally friendly. Figure 11 shows the smart factories of the future industry and shows the possibility of integrating manufacturing processes with big data and cyber systems [103,104,105,106,107]. The future scopes of AM will depends on the emerging technology and material processing techniques [108], [109]. Therefore, additive manufacturing can be considered an agile manufacturing process due to its flexibility and probability of individualization [110,111,112].

Fig. 11
figure 11

Schematic of smart factories with general properties required in Industry 4.0 to show the role of Additive manufacturing [113]

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Table 2 detail explains major materials applied in the different industries. Medical, aerospace and military sectors are mainly focused area of 3D and 4D printing application. In the future aerospace might be inevitable for smart material like shape memory and self-healing for advanced application.

Table 2 Summarizes the recommended for 3D and 4D materials for applications specific to the different industry
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4 Conclusion

In conclusion, the evolution of the production industry has been greatly influenced by the ever-growing needs of customers for advanced products and processes. Additive Manufacturing, particularly through 3D printing, has emerged as a leading technology due to its capacity to fabricate complex designs and simplify manufacturing processes. Despite its advancements, challenges such as the manufacturability of flexible and multi-material parts still persist. This has led to the exploration of 4D printing, introducing an additional dimension of “time” to further enhance the fabrication process and product functionalities.

Through the overview provided in this document, it's evident that both 3D and 4D printing offer significant potential across various industries, including aerospace, medical, automotive, defense, and energy sectors. These technologies enable the creation of custom-made components, topological optimizations, and the fabrication of intricate designs. Furthermore, smart materials play a crucial role in advancing both 3D and 4D printing, offering features such as self-sensing, shape memory, and responsiveness to external stimuli. The comparison between 3 and 4D printing methodologies, along with their respective material processing techniques, underscores the dynamic nature of additive manufacturing. As industries continue to explore the possibilities offered by these technologies, the focus remains on improving efficiency, reducing costs, and pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved in manufacturing. In summary, the insights provided in this document emphasize the transformative impact of additive manufacturing, particularly through 3D and 4D printing, on the manufacturing landscape.

Generally, the most objective of this review is to obviously show the several application areas of additive manufacturing (3D and 4D printing) and to provide information on the future role of AM in the worldwide machine war or internet of things.