High power selective laser melting: A new approach for individualized series production Available to Purchase

World market competition currently boosts trends like mass customization and open innovation which result in a demand for highly individualized products at costs matching or beating those of mass production. Selective Laser Melting is one of the Additive Manufacturing technologies that enables the production of complex shaped individual parts with series identical mechanical properties without the need for part specific tooling or downstream sintering processes, etc. However, the state-of-the-art process and cost efficiency is not yet suited for large-scale series production. In order to improve this efficiency and enable SLM to enter series production it is indispensable to increase the build rate significantly by means of increased laser power and larger beam diameters. Hence, a new SLM machine including a kW laser and a multi-beam system is developed and first experimental results are shown.