Metal Additive Manufacturing Conference - MAMC 2020

Particle Size Distribution (PSD) is usually the first requirement of metal powders users and is considered extremely critical in Additive Manufacturing. Unfortunately this subject is not yet sufficiently standardized and it is difficult to define unambiguous technical specifications for all powders. MIMETE laboratory is equipped with mechanical sieves, laser diffraction, image analysis and SEM: an internal R&R was implemented to compare results from different methods on powders characterized by different PSD and morphology. Experimental results show some interesting evidences, such as: - larger is the PSD, larger is the deviation between laser diffraction results obtained by wet and dry dispersion - SEM is the most detailed method to understand if powder is affected by anomalies as satellites and clusters, but it is time consuming and just qualitative - image analysis is the only technique able to give complete information regarding “real” particle dimensions, but it is not commonly accepted.