Materials

Volkmann: Making the case for the complete automation of powder handling in AM

Two worlds collide in Additive Manufacturing. Consider that a Laser Beam Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB) machine completes its job fully automatically over many hours. Yet, before and after that, a multitude of manual tasks often still need to be completed. Employees may be required to perform these tasks while wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect themselves from metal dust, compounded by the high labour costs that this manual work incurs. Is this the future of cost-efficient, 24/7 production? Christian Mittmann and Manuel Henser, from Volkmann GmbH, believe that the real solution can be found in the complete automation of powder handling. ... Read more »

Fig. 1 AM production with automatic unpacking and depowdering, powder preparation and central supply of metal powder to the AM machines (Courtesy Volkmann GmbH)

Kennametal: The story of the successful commercialisation of AM hardmetal and steel solutions

Kennametal is a particularly interesting company when it comes to the adoption of Additive Manufacturing. It is a dynamic global producer of tooling and industrial materials with sales of $2 billion in 2022, yet its roots are very much in ‘old school’ sinter-based PM processes. It is, therefore, no surprise that the company was an early adopter of AM, leveraging its materials and sintering expertise, as well as its broad customer base, to develop a leading position in the AM of hardmetals and steels. Bernard North, who fortuitously happens to be a past VP Industrial Technology at Kennametal, visited the company’s AM operation and reports for Metal AM magazine. ... Read more »

Fig. 1 The Kennametal campus in Latrobe, Pennsylvania (Courtesy Kennametal)

Case study: The development of a multi-material heat sink by Additive Manufacturing using Aerosint technology

Additive Manufacturing offers the opportunity to transform industrial production. Currently, however, AM components are typically produced in only one material, which in many cases does not allow for full performance utilisation. In this article, Xiaoshuang Li and Arthur Seibel describe, through a heat sink case study, how multi-material design and manufacturing can increase component performance as well as integrate additional functionalities when using the Laser Beam Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB) process. ... Read more »

Fig. 1 Aerosint’s Selective Powder Deposition (SPD) system installed on a MIDI+ machine supplied by Aconity3D GmbH (Courtesy Aerosint)

Separation anxiety: Lessons learned at NASA from a developmental rocket engine failure

So much is discovered when it just all goes wrong. From a ‘design-fail-fix’ perspective, it’s expected that developmental components may be pushed to destruction. With rocket engines that operate near the limits of their performance, however, the need to understand the causes of a failure is critical. In the competitive commercial space business there’s a clear advantage not to disclose knowledge gained from such incidents. Thankfully, NASA can share what others cannot. Here, Alison Park, Deputy Technical Fellow, Materials and Additive Manufacturing, and Paul Gradl, Principal Engineer, share insights into one failure. ... Read more »

Fig. 1 NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is taking full advantage of AM for rocket propulsion systems to reduce time-to-test and iterations through the design-fail-fix cycle (Courtesy NASA)

What is ‘good’ metal AM? Exploring the industry’s value metrics for production

The Additive Manufacturing industry is in a state of continual evolution. As one group of processes moves towards widespread adoption, others are being introduced and refined. In such a dynamic environment, how do we define AM, and what does ‘good’ AM look like? This article considers the status quo of conventional manufacturing before comparing key AM processes. Steven Camilleri, Andrew Duguid, Sam Katz and Chris Massar (SPEE3D), Martin McMahon (MAM Solutions), Victor Champagne (US Army Research Laboratory), Ozan Özdemir (Northeastern University), Anthony Naccarelli and Timothy Eden (Penn State), Krishnan Kannoorpatti (Charles Darwin University) and Bruce McLean (University of Sydney) unravel AM’s value metrics. ... Read more »

Fig. 1 Whilst AM is on the road to widespread adoption, there remains a need for prospective users to better match the right process with the right application (Courtesy SPEE3D)

Corrosion and wear resistance of materials processed by beam-based AM technologies

Materials
December 20, 2022

A technical session at the World PM2022 Congress & Exhibition, organised by the European Powder Metallurgy Association (EPMA) and held in Lyon, France, October 9-13, 2022, focused on the corrosion and wear resistance of materials processed using beam-based Additive Manufacturing. This session comprised three papers which looked at ways to improve these properties – both particular pain points for AM’s wider adoption – by way of chemical-mechanical surface polishing, adjusted laser power, and the development of new, wear-resistant alloys for AM. Dr David Whittaker reviews the presented papers. ... Read more »

Fig. 1 The plenary session at World PM2022 in Lyon, October 2022 (Image PIM International)

NanoAL: Alloy development on an open parameter PBF-LB machine, from installation through to Rapid Alloy Screening

When NanoAL, LLC, a company with a decade of aluminium alloy development experience, decided to speed up its development of alloys for AM, it turned to SLM Solutions’ SLM®125 PBF-LB machine. As NanoAL’s Matthew Simmers explains, the company needed a workhorse machine that fulfilled a number of requirements, from open parameters and material flexibility to specifications and build quality that closely mirrored larger, production-focused machines. This article explores machine choice, installation, and operation in supporting NanoAL’s Rapid Alloy Screening (RAS) process. ... Read more »

Fig. 1 A test part produced using NanoAL’s Addalloy 5T powder (Courtesy NanoAL)

QuesTek’s ICMD: Faster, cheaper, and better alloy development for Additive Manufacturing

MaterialsProcessing
December 19, 2022

Alloy development has evolved dramatically throughout history, from what was a game of ‘trial and error’ to a systematic approach driven by Design of Experiments and specialist software. Now, the adoption of Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) is once again changing the way new materials are developed and deployed in today’s advanced manufacturing technologies. QuesTek’s Keith Fritz, Director of Solutions Architecture, details how the company’s ICMD® platform is enabling faster, cheaper and more successful development of new alloys for metal Additive Manufacturing, as well as the build parameters to process them. ... Read more »

Fig. 1 A demonstration part built with a Questek developed high-temperature aluminium alloy for PBF-LB

Tailored materials for AM: How a ‘powder kit’ can achieve greater material diversity with fewer resources in PBF-LB

MaterialsProcessing
December 19, 2022

The use of metal AM is ramping up, and so, as a result, is the demand for metal powders. However, the variety of materials available remains relatively small. This is due, among other things, to the exacting requirements for the powders used, and the method of production. In addition, the production of smaller quantities of powder can be uneconomical. In a project funded by the AiF, the IWM at Germany’s RWTH Aachen University and Fraunhofer IFAM have developed a sustainable ‘powder kit’ for the individual and robust production of metal powder mixtures with subsequent alloying during PBF-LB processing. The partners share their progress. ... Read more »

Fig. 1 Concept of the PBF-LB powder building kit (Courtesy Fraunhofer IFAM)

Smart sensor-integrated parts by AM: A look at a novel possibility with industrial applications

Additive Manufacturing processes offer a high degree of design freedom. The Laser Beam Powder Bed Fusion of metals (PBF-LB/M), in particular, has established itself for series applications of complex-shaped parts in numerous industries. In this article, Prof Dr-Ing Christian Seidel considers the next major step in PBF-LB, which could offer designers unknown potential: the production of sensor-integrated AM parts. Methods and solutions for the manufacturing of sensor-integrated AM parts are presented and industry-relevant case studies showcased, illustrating the potential offered by sensor-integrated ‘smart parts.’ ... Read more »

Fig. 1 Sensor-integrated smart gear produced by Fraunhofer IGCV allowing for superior condition monitoring (left), conventional gear (right), additively manufactured antenna and sensor that has been implemented inside the smart gear (bottom), and reading unit for the RFID-based sensor (top)

What happens when you take the powder out of AM? Charting the rise of wire-based DED with WAAM3D

While most people associate the advantages of AM with small- to medium-sized, complex parts, wire-based Directed Energy Deposition (DED) makes it possible to achieve geometric complexity on a huge scale. Although the adoption rate for wire-based DED does not come close to that of the more widely known metal AM processes, this unique technology has advanced dramatically over recent years, and promises major advantages in a volatile global manufacturing landscape. Dr Filomeno Martina, CEO and co-founder of WAAM3D, explains more. ... Read more »

Fig. 1 A 2319 aluminium wind tunnel model featuring a nose cone produced by WAAM3D for the UK's Aircraft Research Association, demonstrating that prototypes can be developed quickly and to defined tolerances using DED-Arc. Material usage was reduced by 74%. Activity funded by a Clean Sky 2 research and innovation programme under GA Agreement 864803 (Courtesy WAAM3D and ARA Ltd)

Advances in the AM of refractory metals and hard materials at the 20th Plansee Seminar

MarketsMaterials
October 7, 2022

As Additive Manufacturing sees growing use in a broader range of industries, researchers have been increasingly focused on expanding the types of material that can be processed via this technology, including the challenging field of refractory metals and hard materials. The AM research featured in the programme of the recently held Plansee Seminar represents the cutting edge of what is possible with these materials using the most advanced manufacturing processes. Here, Bernard North collates the seminar’s takeaways on the suitability of these materials for direct Additive Manufacturing processes. [First published in Metal AM Vol. 8 No. 3, Autumn 2022] ... Read more »

Fig. 1 The Plansee seminar has welcomed technical leaders and academics to Reutte, Austria, since its 1952 inception (Courtesy Plansee)

In the latest issue of Metal AM magazine

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Extensive AM industry news coverage, as well as the following exclusive deep-dive articles:

  • Metal AM in the aerospace sector: from early successes to the transformation of an industry
  • Slowly but surely: Industrialising metal Additive Manufacturing the Norwegian way
  • Hot Isostatic Pressing and AM: How to improve product quality and productivity for critical applications
  • The convergence of Additive Manufacturing and Artificial Intelligence: Envisioning a future that is closer than you think
  • ADAXIS: On a mission to reduce the layers of complexity in robotic Additive Manufacturing
  • Exploiting your metal Additive Manufacturing data assets: Faster industrialisation and new revenue streams

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