What are the business benefits of support-less metal additive manufacturing?

Today, metal additive manufacturing is still predominantly used to make functional prototypes, tooling components and spare parts. Step by step, it is starting to be employed for production-oriented use. In a study published by SmarTech Analysis, the consulting firm predicted that metal additive manufacturing would generate $228 billion worth of metal components over the coming decade. One of the key benefits of metal additive manufacturing is that designers can model parts with a new level of design freedom. But how much design freedom does metal additive manufacturing truly enable?

We ask the question because in the most widely used metal AM process, laser powder bed fusion, unlike polymer powder bed fusion (also known as SLS), metal parts are attached to the build platform through support structures. And these support structures add considerable design and manufacturing constraints. They are built using the same material as the part and are essential to mitigate the warping and distortion that may occur due to the high processing temperatures. The metal additive manufacturing solution provider, VELO3D, has developed a support-less technology to further optimize time, cost and quality of metal parts. In fact, the company has been enabling engineers to produce parts that were previously impossible to manufacture using traditional methods.

Existing metal AM machines today require angles less than 45 degrees to have support structures. As the angle decreases, the downward facing surface becomes rough and eventually the part will fail if the angle is reduced too far | Credits: Protolabs

A support-less metal additive manufacturing technology

Support structures are necessary in 95% of metal additively manufactured parts, as estimated by Protolabs. Essentially, they are required for all angles less than 45 degrees. Under 45 degrees, they offer a suitable platform for the next layer to be built upon, they anchor the part to the build plate, they prevent warping and also help draw heat away, allowing the part to cool at a more controlled rate. If they are not included, as the angle decreases, the downward-facing surface will become rougher and eventually the part will fail if the angle is reduced too far.