EUROPEAN CONGRESS AND EXHIBITION ON ADVANCED MATERIALS AND PROCESSES - EUROMAT 2021

One of the factors limiting the use of additive manufacturing, particularly powder-bed processes, is their low productivity. An approach to increase the build rate of laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) without hardware modifications, such as the implementation of multiple laser sources, is to alter process parameters. In this study, equations for productivity are derived based on process parameters and build geometry. The application of these equations on the process window for Hastelloy X in LPBF demonstrates that build rates for virtually defect-free parts vary by a minimum factor of 4. Hastelloy X processed at high and low rates are characterized to investigate the potential drawbacks of increasing manufacturing productivity.