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EBM vs L-PBF: Which Metal Powder Fusion Process to Choose?

Metal additive manufacturing has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, making it possible to create complex shapes with enhanced performance and quality. The processes that offer these possibilities are numerous: powder bed fusion, directed energy deposition, binder jetting,

EBM L-PBF
3Dnatives

Metal additive manufacturing has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, making it possible to create complex shapes with enhanced performance and quality. The processes that offer these possibilities are numerous: powder bed fusion, directed energy deposition, binder jetting, and so on. And powder bed fusion is one of the most widely used.

Two separate techniques fall under this umbrella, which differ mainly in the heat source used: laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) and electron beam melting (EBM). The principle between the two remains the same: fusing metal particles spread out on a printing plate, layer by layer, to create the desired 3D model. But using a laser to perform this operation or an electron beam is obviously different.

So which process should you adopt? What are the characteristics of these two techniques? What do they have in common? We took a closer look.