Materials and Additive Manufacturing: Metals and beyond

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1 Materials and Additive Manufacturing: Metals and beyond 3D Printing Materials Conference, 3rd edition January 2016 MECC Maastricht - The Netherlands Giorgio Magistrelli

2 ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING and MATERIALS EVOLUTION It seems ages ago when in 1982 Chuck Hull started experimenting with Stereolithography (SLA) the opportunities of layer manufacturing, reaching few years later the milestone registration of US patent 4,575,330 on March 11 th, Since that day, different resins, polymers, metals, ceramics, composites and bio cells started enriching the landscape of materials available for Additive Manufacturing

3 ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING SERVICES AND MATERIALS: WHERE THE REAL MONEY IS Hype of AM constantly evolving and adjusting to new developments AM actors and companies, as in all emerging sectors, are facing - or taking advantages of - sectorial consolidations and corporate merging. AM technologies evolution and extended numbers of applications are leading to a steady growth of materials usage, as well as of service centres providing to clients multiple technologies and processes in the same location and for diversified additively manufactured parts. In fact, according to Wohlers, AM services income grew year-toyear in 2014 of 38.9%, reaching the total of almost U$ 1.3 billion from U$976 million in 2013 and with a 400% development in the past 5 years..

4 ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING SERVICES AND MATERIALS: WHERE THE REAL MONEY IS AM Materials business in 2014 reached the income of U$ 640 million with an increase of % yty, three times more the market output in 2010

5 ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING MATERIALS: POLYMERS Additive Manufacturing Materials markets are dominated by Photopolymers and Metals: in the same year, Photopolymers grew reaching U$ million..

6 ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING MATERIALS: METALS.while Metals increased 49.4% for a total value of U$ 48.7 M million

7 ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING MATERIALS: POLYMERS, METALS. and The trend also seems envisaging in the future forecasts related to the next ten years a consistent relevance by Thermoplastic and Metal powders, due to the wider application of AM techniques from rapid prototyping to final parts manufacturing. Source (IDTechex)

8 DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES, DIFFERENT MATERIALS Tough the definition of Additive Manufacturing is universally accepted and approved by main standardization bodies, AM is encompassing a series of processes and technologies specifically linked to the utilization of different materials. AM PROCESS TECHNOLOGY MATERIALS Binder Jetting Powder Bed And Inkjet Head Printing Ceramic Powders, Metal Laminates, Acrylic, Sand, Composites, Polymers, polymer blends Plaster Based 3D Printing Bonded Plaster, Plaster Composites Directed Energy Deposition Laser Metal Deposition Metals And Metal Alloys, hybrid metals Material Extrusion Fused Deposition Modelling Thermoplastics, Polymers, polymer blends Material Jetting Multi-Jet Modelling Photopolymers, Wax, Composites Powder Bed Fusion Electron Beam Melting Titanium Powder, Cobalt Chrome Selective Heat Sintering Thermoplastic Powder Selective Laser Sintering Plastic, Metal, Paper, Glass, Ceramic, Composites Direct Metal Laser Sintering Stainless Steel, Cobalt Chrome, Nickel Alloy Sheet Lamination Laminated Object Manufacturing Plastic, Metal Laminates, Paper, Ceramics, Composites Ultrasonic Consolidation Metal And Metal Alloys Vat Polymerization Stereolithography Liquid Photopolymer, Composites Digital Light Processing Liquid Photopolymer

9 Main AM Technologies and impact on Metal Source : Roland Berger/Gardner/AMT

10 ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING and MATERIALS EVOLUTION THE METALS LANDSCAPE AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS Metal AM processes as directed energy deposition and metal powder bed fusion and are potentially capable of producing functional and high-quality, parts from a variety of metallic powder materials, as: Cobalt-chromium and nickel-based alloys Commercially pure titanium and titanium alloys Copper and Aluminium alloys Precious metals (gold, platinum, palladium, silver) Stainless steels Tool steels Source (Phenix)

11 ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING and MATERIALS EVOLUTION METAL POWDERS Metal powders can have different sizes and shapes (spherical or irregular) and Additive Manufacturing metal systems and processes are various: systems manufacturers are strongly cooperating with materials providers as to develop new processes while reducing porosity, strengthening consistency and ensure repeatability as specifically required by industries. The method to produce metal powders is atomization and gas atomization is the preferred one for AM, while water atomization is the most economic and common system. Gas Atomisation is specifically used for Ni, Fe, Al, Ti and Co alloys and offers more regular shapes of powders particles. For example, the majority of powder bed fusion AM systems in fact prefers metal powders with particles which are spherical, uniform and dense. The process requires the melting of the solid metal in a vacuum atmosphere (or under air/inert gas) filled with high-velocity gas (often argon, but also nitrogen or helium) which reduces the metal in fine particles then spheroidized.

12 ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING and MATERIALS EVOLUTION MAJOR METAL POWDER MANUFACTURERS Major third party metal powder manufacturers are AP&C, Arcam, Argen, ATI Powder Metals, Carpenter, Cooksongold, Conceptlaser, DM3D,Erasteel,EOS, GKN Hoeganaes, HC Starck, Legor Group, LPW Technology, Metalysis Technology, Metco, Praxair, Renishaw, Sandvik, SLM and TLS. As for polymers, also metals for AM are more expensive than for subtractive and traditional manufacturing processes; in the case of metals also for the high costs of atomizing gases. However, constant researches and innovation, together with OEMs development could lead to a wider usage of metal AM in manufacturing and therefore with consequent lowering of materials costs.

13 CONCLUSION In Additive Manufacturing, machines and materials development go hand in hand: while in the future years we will see the consolidation of processes and the wider usage of AM systems, quality and development of materials represent one of those key aspects of AM value chain to be constantly followed by AM industries and users. Source (Eos)

14 Thank you! Giorgio Magistrelli Expert on Additive Manufacturing Tel: