Manufacturing 3-D Metal Parts

June 17th, 2014 by

Researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California have developed an efficient approach to a problem in additive manufacturing. Selective laser melting (SLM) is a powder-based, additive manufacturing process where a 3-D part is produced, layer by layer, using a high-energy laser beam to fuse the metal powder particles. Building functional parts and components to specific standards and specifications can be challenging because a large number of parameters must be set appropriately. The researchers’ approach is to identify optimal parameters to print 3-D, high-density metal parts. Parameters for higher-power SLM machines can be selected by using simple, computational simulations. These simulations are used to compute the dimensions of the melt pool, which is the pool of liquid formed when the laser melts the metal powder particles. The researchers found that the metal density reduces if the speed is too low, due to voids created as a result of keyhole mode laser melting, while too high a speed results in insufficient melting. They also found that the use of different powders affected densities at lower power, but not at higher power.

Source: Lawrence Livermore National Lab

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