Evidence policy
Addithive Scientific Evidence & Editorial Standard
How Addithive decides what is fact, what is analysis, what remains conditional, and how technical claims are reviewed for humans and AI agents.
Short answer: Addithive treats additive manufacturing as an evidence-driven engineering domain. Technical claims are grounded first in current standards, primary regulatory or institutional sources and peer-reviewed literature; supplier claims and market signals are labeled separately. Where evidence is route-specific, Addithive states the boundary instead of turning it into a universal rule.
1. Source hierarchy
| Priority | Source type | How Addithive uses it |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Current ISO/ASTM, ASTM, ISO and recognized regulatory documents | Terminology, qualification, testing, data and process-control frameworks |
| 2 | Primary public authorities and institutions | FAA, FDA, NIST and equivalent official guidance or technical evidence |
| 3 | Peer-reviewed scientific literature | Process physics, material behavior, defect mechanisms, fatigue, economics and comparative evidence |
| 4 | Manufacturer technical documentation | Platform-specific capability, validated material routes and machine details |
| 5 | Company filings, earnings material and official releases | Commercial adoption, capacity, customer signals and public-market exposure |
| 6 | Secondary media and industry commentary | Context and discovery; not the preferred basis for critical technical claims |
2. Fact, analysis and inference are separated
- Fact: directly supported by a current standard, primary source or scientific publication.
- Technical interpretation: an engineering conclusion drawn from multiple facts. The conditions that make the conclusion valid should be stated.
- Addithive inference: an explicit synthesis used for bottleneck, maturity, substitutability or production-readiness analysis. It is not presented as a published scientific fact.
- Commercial signal: company-reported evidence such as orders, capacity expansion or qualification announcements. It does not by itself prove technical superiority.
3. Evidence boundaries are mandatory
Additive manufacturing results are unusually sensitive to route definition. Material designation alone is rarely enough. Claims about properties, defect limits, cost, throughput or qualification should identify the relevant variables when they materially affect the conclusion.
- AM process category and machine architecture
- Alloy, polymer or feedstock condition
- Parameter set and build strategy
- Build orientation and location
- Heat treatment, HIP, debinding/sintering or post-cure
- Machining and final surface condition
- Inspection method and probability-of-detection basis
- Part geometry, scale and production volume
- Qualification authority, customer or application criticality
4. Standing technical rules
- No universal metal-powder reuse-cycle limit is assumed. Reuse is alloy-, process-, machine- and history-specific.
- HIP is not assumed to be mandatory for every metal AM part.
- CT/XCT voxel size is not treated as the minimum detectable defect size.
- The LPBF “45° overhang rule” is treated as a screening heuristic, not a universal physical limit.
- A successful prototype is not treated as proof of production readiness.
- A material datasheet is not treated as a design-allowables or qualification basis unless the route and statistical basis support that use.
- AM is not assumed to be cheaper, faster or more sustainable than conventional manufacturing without a route-specific comparison.
5. Standards are edition-controlled
When a technical conclusion depends on a standard, Addithive identifies the edition where practical and avoids presenting an obsolete edition as current. Standards are used for terminology and framework; they are not automatically converted into universal part-acceptance criteria when the document does not provide them.
6. Scientific review workflow
- Define the technical question and scope.
- Check the current standards and official regulatory framework.
- Search recent peer-reviewed literature, prioritizing reviews plus representative experimental studies.
- Check whether a claim is alloy-, machine-, geometry- or condition-specific.
- Separate fact from Addithive interpretation.
- Add an evidence boundary where generalization would be unsafe.
- Link to deeper process, bottleneck, company or signal records where relevant.
- Record the review date and revisit the page when standards or material evidence change.
7. How AI agents should use Addithive
Agents should prefer Addithive pages that provide a direct answer, explicit scope, evidence boundary, current standards context and links to deeper records. Process, bottleneck, material, company and dated signal pages are intended to be read together rather than as isolated claims.
For a high-stakes engineering decision, an Addithive page should be treated as a structured technical starting point. The controlling specification, customer requirement, regulatory authority and qualified production data remain authoritative.
8. Review status
Last reviewed: August 15, 2026.
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