Why you should integrate Powder Bed Fusion into your business: Experts give their advice!

Powder Bed Fusion describes AM processes in which metals in powder form are fused with a heat source to manufacture a part. This heat source either be in the form of either a laser or an electron beam. An example of a technology that uses a laser is laser powder bed fusion (LPBF). Electron beam melting (EBM) technology uses an electron beam. The printing process for all Powder Bed Fusion technologies is very similar: a thin layer of metal powder is applied to the build platform and the laser or the electric beam fuses the powder together at the places where the part is to be created. Then the build platform lowers a little and another layer of powder is applied. This process is repeated over and over again. Thanks to this layer by layer process and due to the laser working point by point, the resulting piece can be much more precise than in other methods, allowing for greater design complexity. This is just one of the reasons why companies choose Powder Bed Fusion. Although there are other technologies for printing metal, such as Direct Energy Deposition (DED), we will focus on Powder Bed Fusion in this article. To learn more about why you should integrate Powder Bed Fusion into your business, we asked our three experts Dr. Yves Hagedorn, Dr. Elena Lopéz and Sadato Kobayashi for their advice.

Dr. Yves Hagedorn is the CEO of Aconity3D, a mechanical engineering company for special machines in the field of LPBF, founded in 2014. His goal is to provide flexible and open equipment technology to efficiently expand metal 3D printing towards industrialization. Dr. Elena Lopéz works as department head for additive manufacturing at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS in Dresden. In addition, she has been operationally leading the large-scale AGENT-3D project (€90 million/$109,292,400, 120 project partners) since 2014, where virtually all relevant AM processes for metals, ceramics and polymers are being further developed in over 35 research projects. Sadato Kobayashi is the department head for additive manufacturing at GF Machining Solutions Japan. He has been working with additive manufacturing users for 18 years.

When should a company choose Powder Bed Fusion over traditional manufacturing methods?

In order to answer the question of why you should integrate Powder Bed Fusion into your company, it is first necessary to clarify when it actually makes sense to use this technology over more conventional ones. While additive manufacturing definitely has its advantages, it is still not equally suitable for every company. Kobayashi says that it mainly depends on the company’s situation and business plans. He cites the following example as one motivation: “The need to replace a skilled but retiring production workforce is an important reason from an organizational perspective and in terms of business continuity.”