Metal Additive Manufacturing Conference - MAMC 2020

One of the main qualitative risks related to powder metallurgy is contamination of metal powders: the mixing between different alloys, in fact, could cause anomalous segregation and possible undesired precipitation of secondary phases that might act as failure initiation. MIMETE is very careful about this aspect and applies strict rules all along the production process to avoid that different powders come into contact. Nevertheless, as additional care, a detailed study was conducted to define the detectability of contamination by means of different techniques: EDS mapping by SEM, ICP chemical analysis, high energy tomography. In order to compare the sensitivity of these methods some controlled artificial blendings were prepared and tested, showing that at the moment only statistical control is possible and relatively high contamination is measurable. Further testing would be necessary to evaluate the real critical limit for application, for instance on additive manufactured samples produced by voluntarily contaminated powders.