Retrofit of an electron beam and powder bed based additive manufacturing machine

• Subject Area: Materials Engineering
• Term: Funded in 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 461245594

Selective electron beam melting (SEBM) is a powder bed-based additive manufacturing process. A characteristic of the SEBM is the combination of high beam power with a virtually inertia-free beam deflection by means of electromagnetic coils in a vacuum atmosphere. As a result, the beam can be used extremely flexibly for melting, heating and, for some time now, also for electron-optical imaging (ELO). The SEBM is particularly suitable for high-performance materials, e.g. Nickel-based alloys or intermetallic phases, particularly interesting because building temperatures up to 1100 ° C can be achievedAs part of the retrofit applied for, an existing Arcam A2 commercial system is to be equipped with a modern electron gun (6 kW instead of 3.0 kW), a fully accessible control system and an ELO system. Thanks to a 200 times higher clock frequency (20 MHz instead of 100 kHz) and improved beam quality, the power and beam flexibility should be fully usable for the first time. The integrated ELO system represents the technological basis for robust, high-quality process monitoring and thus future process control.

• DFG Programme: Major Research Instrumentation
• Major Instrumentation: Retrofit einer elektronenstrahlbasierten additiven Fertigungsanlage im Pulverbett
• Instrumentation Group: 2110 Formen-, Modellherstellung und gießereitechnische Maschinen
• Applicant Institution: Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
• Leader: Professorin Dr.-Ing. Carolin Körner