Powders for Additive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing or rapid prototyping is a collection of manufacturing processes to produce near net shaped components, where components are built by adding the material layer by layer based on a digital solid model. The specific attributes of the precursor powder that affect the final quality of the AM product are powder density and flowability, particle shape and size distribution, chemistry, cleanliness, handling atmosphere, storage, and reusability. Many of these attributes of powder are favourably achieved through inert gas atomization process. Powders of nickel based super alloys like IN-718, IN-625, BZL12Y, aluminium alloys like Al-Mg, Al-Fe-V-Si, Fe-Mn alloys suitable for AM are developed using state-of-the art inert gas atomizer available at ARCI. AM coupons are built using the selective laser melting (SLM) and characterized.