Powder spreading in laser-powder bed fusion process

Laser-Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) has been extensively utilized by a broad range of manufacturing industries in recent years. Fabricating parts with high mechanical properties and smooth surfaces has motivated such industries and academic communities to study different aspects and steps of the LPBF pro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Granular matter 2021-11, Vol.23 (4), Article 89
Main Authors: Sehhat, M. Hossein, Mahdianikhotbesara, Ali
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Angle of repose
Complex Fluids and Microfluidics
Engineering Fluid Dynamics
Engineering Thermodynamics
Foundations
Geoengineering
Heat and Mass Transfer
Hydraulics
Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering
Laser applications
Lasers
Mass flow rate
Materials Science
Mechanical properties
Original Paper
Particle size distribution
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
Powder beds
Process parameters
Rapid prototyping
Scanning
Soft and Granular Matter
Solidification
Substrates
Surface roughness
Thickness
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Summary:Laser-Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) has been extensively utilized by a broad range of manufacturing industries in recent years. Fabricating parts with high mechanical properties and smooth surfaces has motivated such industries and academic communities to study different aspects and steps of the LPBF process, including powder spreading, laser scanning, and solidification. Creation of highly dense powder layers with lower surface roughness before laser scanning step is a must for producing non-porose part layers after laser scanning step of LPBF process. Thus, the initial powder spreading step of the LPBF process has been investigated to correlate the powder spreadability to powder layer quality and consequent part properties. The current review paper summarizes the previous work performed to define some spreadability metrics and determine the impact of LPBF process parameters and powder characteristics on powder spreadability. The spread powder layer's quality, which is called powder spreadability, is discussed in terms of empty areas on the substrate, powder bed density, powder surface roughness, powder dynamic repose angle, and powder mass flow rate. Also, the influence of LPBF process parameters, including recoating velocity, layer thickness, and recoater type, and powder characteristics, like particle size distribution, on the defined spreadability metrics are reviewed.
ISSN:1434-5021
1434-7636
DOI:10.1007/s10035-021-01162-x