Developing new materials for electron beam melting: Experiences and challenges

Lack of industrially available materials for additive manufacturing (AM) of metallic materials along with the promises of materials with improved or unique properties provides a strong drive for developing new process/material combinations. As powder bed technologies for metallic materials are relatively new to the market, and to some extent are only maturing, developers of new process/material combinations have certain challenges to overcome. Firstly, basic knowledge on the behavior of materials (even those well established for other applications) under extreme conditions of melting/solidification with beam-based AM methods is far from being adequate. Secondly, manufacturing of the equipment is up to date driven by industrial application, thus optimization of the AM machines for small test batches of powders is still belongs to research and development projects. Also, majority of the powder manufacturers are primarily driven by the market development, and even they are well aware of the demands imposed by the powder bed AM machines, availability of small test batches of adequate powders may be problematic or at least quite costly for the R&D oriented users. Present paper describes the experiences in developing new materials for EBM A2 machine by Arcam EBM, modified for operating with powder batches of 100-200 ml and less. In particular it discusses achievements and challenges of working with powders from different materials with specifications far beyond the range suggested by machine manufacturer. Also it discusses the possibility of using blended rather than pre-alloyed powders for achieving both composite-like and alloyed materials in the same part by steering electron beam energy deposition strategy.