Carl Dekker

Vice Chair of the ASTM F42 Met-L-Flo Inc

 

Carl Dekker serves as the president of Met‐L‐Flo, Inc., a growing service center for Additive
Manufacturing located in Sugar Grove, IL. He has been actively involved in research and product
development using current technologies and innovative methods.
A past Chairperson of the SME’s Rapid Technologies and Additive Manufacturing community (RTAM –
formerly PRA), he currently serves as Chair of the Direct Digital Manufacturing Tech group of the RATM.
Being actively involves in fostering education he teaches the RATM certificate program and also remains
active in the Bright Minds program as a member and past co‐chair.
Carl holds a Master Certificate in Rapid Prototyping and is a proud recipient of the SLA “Dinosaur’
Award.

 

Speech Abstract

 

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is more commonly known as 3D Printing. These AM technologies consist
of building geometries layer by layer and all of the systems have Pros and Cons. This presentation,
through a series of product and case examples, will cover the basics of the most common technologies
for plastic and metal materials via jetting, extruding, polymerization, and sintering. Attendees will also
learn the alphabet soup of AM, or more commonly Rapid Prototyping (RP) including SLS, SLA, FDM,
DMLS, EBM, and MJM.
The diverse number of technologies and systems can make it difficult for consumers to understand how
to communicate what is desired for an end product. The ASTM Intl F42 Committee on Standards for
Additive Manufacturing has embarked on creating standards for these technologies. A brief overview of
these activities and standards and how they are developed will also be included.