Posted on

Wayland Additive to Launch Calibur 3 Production 3D Printer in January 2021

U.K. company Wayland Additive, spun out from engineering firm Reliance Precision, licensed the metal AM NeuBeam process from its parent company with an aim to commercialize it by 2021. This goal will soon become a reality, as Wayland has announced a major milestone — it will be commercially launching the Calibur 3, its first production NeaBeam 3D printing system, on January 27th of 2021.

“We are very happy to confirm the launch date for the Calibur 3,” Peter Hansford, the Director of Business Development for Wayland Additive, stated in a press release. “On 27th January next year we will be unveiling the full specs of the machine to our early adopters and partners as well as to the press at a dedicated event. Currently the plan is to bring people in to see it in action for themselves if we are able to with Covid 19 restrictions, but we will also be live-streaming the event for interested parties that may not be able to attend. 2020 has been an unprecedented year in many ways and the global pandemic has caused a great deal of disruption and uncertainty. At Wayland, however, we have been able to navigate through these difficulties and keep our focus on the development of our system. Talking to industrial users of metal AM throughout, it is clear that despite the disruptions, many companies are still making medium and long-term plans, and we look forward to serving them with our ground-breaking technology.”

NeuBeam metal AM technology is an electron beam powder bed fusion (PBF) process, and was created from the ground up, by a team of in-house physicists, in order to negate most of the compromises made when using metal 3D printing for part production. The process can actually neutralize the charge accumulation you normally see with electron beam melting (EBM), which enables more flexibility.  The creators used physics principles learned in the semiconductor sector to come up with this unique method, which, as the press release states, is able to overcome “the inherent instabilities of traditional eBeam processes,” along with the typical internal residual stresses that occur with PBF technologies.

Wayland’s NeuBeam technology can print fully dense parts in many different materials, including highly reflective alloys and refractory metals, which are not compatible with traditional laser PBF and eBeam processes; this results in much better metallurgy capabilities. NeuBeam is also a hot “part” process, instead of a hot “bed” process, as it applies high temperatures to the part only, and not the bed. This allows for free-flowing post-build powder and stress-free parts with less energy consumption, which makes for more efficient part printing.

The soon-to-launch Calibur 3 printer is an open system, and was specifically designed by Wayland to be used for production applications. That’s why the company made sure to add completely embedded in-process print monitoring to the system’s features, which allow users to enjoy full oversight during the process and rest easy knowing each part has full traceability.

“Save the date in your diary now. We are in the process of curating an impressive in-person and on-line event which will be of huge interest to industrial sectors that use or are planning to use metal AM for production applications,” said Will Richardson, Wayland Additive’s CEO. “January 27th 2021 will be a pivotal day for Wayland, but also a pivotal day for industry as they get a first clear view of the opportunities that exist through the use of our NeuBeam technology.”

NeuBeam technology

Wayland has said that it plans to start shipping the Calibur 3 to customers later in 2021.

(Source/Images: Wayland Additive)

The post Wayland Additive to Launch Calibur 3 Production 3D Printer in January 2021 appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

Posted on

Sciaky Joins R&D Initiative to Combine Traditional Metallurgy with Wirefed Metal 3D Printing Techniques

Metal 3D printing solutions provider Sciaky, Inc., well known for its extremely popular Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing (EBAM) process, just announced that it has entered into a research and development initiative with metallurgist expert Aubert & Duval – a subsidiary of the Eramet group’s Alloys division – and Airbus, one of its previous 3D printing partners. The ambitious initiative, also called the Metallic Advanced Materials for Aeronautics (MAMA) project, is being driven by the Saint Exupéry Institute for Research in Technology (IRT), and the academic partner for the project is the Production Engineering laboratory of the National School of Engineering in Tarbes, France.

“Sciaky is proud to work with the Saint Exupéry IRT, Aubert & Duval and Airbus on this exciting project. Industrial metal additive manufacturing technology continues to break new ground every day, and Sciaky is committed to keeping EBAM at the forefront of this movement,” said Scott Phillips, the President and CEO of Sciaky, Inc., a subsidiary of Phillips Service Industries, Inc. (PSI).

In terms of work envelope, Sciaky’s exclusive EBAM technology is probably the most widely scalable metal AM solution in the industry. It’s the only industrial metal 3D printing process that has approved applications for air, land, sea, and space, with gross deposition rates up to 11.34 kg of metal an hour, and is able to manufacture parts from 203 mm to 5.79 meters in length. Rather than just melting the outer layer of the metal powder, the EBAM process completely liquefies the metal wire feed.

The fast, cost-effective EBAM process offers a wide range of material options, including titanium, for large-scale metal applications, and uses its adaptive IRISS (Interlayer Real-time Imaging and Sensing System) to combine quality and control, as the patented system can sense, and digitally self-adjust, metal deposition with repeatability and precision. It is mainly due to the IRISS system that the Chicago-based company’s EBAM 3D printing process is so good at delivering, as the company puts it, “consistent part geometry, mechanical properties, microstructure, and metal chemistry, from the first part to the last.”

The goal of its combined MAMA project with Airbus and Aubert & Duval is to combine traditional metallurgy (high-power closed die forging) with new wirefed metal 3D printing techniques, such as Sciaky’s EBAM process, in order to come up with new processes for manufacturing titanium alloys that can be used to make aircraft parts. Based on the caliber of its partners, Sciaky made a good decision in joining the R&D initiative – Airbus is a 3D printing pioneer in the aerospace industry, and Aubert & Duval creates and develops advanced metallurgical solutions for projects in demanding industries, such as nuclear, medical, energy, defense, and aeronautics.

The project’s first phase has global funding in the amount of €4.2 million. 50% of this funding is supported by the French State as part of its “Investing in the Future” program (Programme Investissement d’Avenir, or PIA), while the other half is funded by industrial partners of the initiative.

Discuss this story and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.

[Images provided by Sciaky, Inc.]

Posted on

Microstructure of Powder Bed Fusion 316 L Stainless Steel: Colonies of Cells

(a) Bright-field transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image of the cells oriented perpendicular to the observation direction; (b) Bright-field TEM image of the cells oriented parallel to the observation direction, diffraction pattern illustrates the <100> fcc zone axis orientation of the cells; (c) nanoparticles observed in the microstructure of LPBF 316 L steel marked by arrows; and (d) TEM energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectra taken from one of the particle illustrated in (c).

A great deal of work is involved in optimizing materials for additive manufacturing. Porosity is a consistent problem in metal 3D printing, and scientists spend a lot of time studying each metal material to try to minimize or eliminate flaws. In a paper entitled “Microstructure, Solidification Texture, and Thermal Stability of 316 L Stainless Steel Manufactured by Laser Powder Bed Fusion,” a team of researchers examines 316 L stainless steel using techniques including scanning and transition electron microscopy, diffraction methods and atom probe tomography.

Porosity can be eliminated by controlling the laser power and laser scanning speed during the 3D printing process, the researchers point out.

“The final properties are governed by the microstructure of the material,” they continue. “The microstructure of the LPBF material is formed under the conditions of high temperature gradients and solidification rates, far from the ones of conventional materials. This results in the formation of a nonequilibrium microstructure with a unique set of properties. Epitaxial nucleation of cellular colonies has commonly been observed, which results in the solidification texture and anisotropic mechanical properties of LPBF materials.”

(a) Scanning strategy used to manufacture laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) 316 L; (b) microstructure of the LPBF 316 L steel, optical micrograph.

The study, which was conducted over several years, focuses on the metallurgical aspects of the material, as well as its microstructure. The formation of a cellular structure in a molten pool was discussed in relation to the thermal gradient and solidification rate. The correlation between the primary cell spacing and hardness was also discussed in relation to additive manufacturing process parameters and the presence of porosity.

(a) Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) micrograph of the etched cross section of the LPBF 316 L. Colony boundaries are marked by a dashed line; (b) channeling contrast SEM image of a cross section of the LPBF 316 L single track; (c) an electron back-scattering diffraction (EBSD) orientation map of the marked in the (b) region; grains 1, 2, and 3 illustrate the epitaxial nucleation of colonies from the substrate.

Several experiments were carried out with the stainless steel material. Specimens were additively manufactured using a Phenix Systems PM 100 machine. For the microstructural analysis, parameters of 50 W laser power and a 120 mm/s laser scanning speed were used because they provided the lowest porosity. Microstructural analysis was performed using optical and electron microscopy methods.

Several conclusions were reached. The as-built microstructure of the stainless steel consists of colonies of cells, and the boundaries between the cells are not regular high-angle grain boundaries, but rather dislocation structures of 100-300 nm in thickness. The size of the cells in the colonies depends on the manufacturing conditions, and may vary within a single track.

“The segregation of elements on the cell boundaries is presumably a function of the solidification conditions, and it may vary in AM 316 L manufactured at different laser powers and scanning speeds,” the researchers state. “Primary cell spacing is the key parameter that controls strength, following the Hall–Petch relationship. In many cases, deviations from the Hall–Petch relationship can be explained by variations of the primary cell spacing through the LPBF material and porosity.”

Solidification texture was formed by colonies of cells that grew through several layers. The texture was controlled by the manufacturing strategy. Cells within colonies were stable up to 800-900°C, after which point they disappeared. The disappearance of the cells resulted in a decrease in hardness. Colony growth was not significant until 1050 °C.

“Nanoscale oxide particles probably form from surface oxide, or due to oxygen pick up during manufacturing,” the researchers continue. “They are stable and do not coalesce or change shape after heat treatment up to 1050 °C. The contribution of these nanoscale particles to hardness of LPBF 316 L material seems to be insignificant, since after heat treatment the hardness of LPBF 316 L steel approached values typical for conventional coarse-grained material.”

Authors of the paper include Pavel Krakhmalev, Gunnel Fredriksson, Krister Svensson, Igor Yadroitsev, Ina Yadroitsava, Mattias Thuvander, and Ru Peng.

Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below.