Manufacturing Processes and Powder Property of Metal Powders for Additive Manufacturing

Recently, Additive Manufacturing (AM) has been attracting attention as the breakthrough manufacturing technology and is being aggressively researched and developed around the world. Metal AM enables the integration of parts with complex 3D internal structures, such as topology optimization and lattice structures, which are difficult to achieve with conventional casting or machining processes and reduces costs by reducing the number of parts and weight. Therefore, it is applied in various industrial fields such as aircraft, medical, automotive, and die & mold. There are various processes for metal AM, of which powder bed fusion (PBF) and direct energy deposition (DED), which use metal powders, are technologically mature and industrially widespread. In metal AM using metal powder, the quality of the AM product is influenced by the interaction of complex factors such as AM build recipe, powder properties and powder feeding process. In case the raw powder with inappropriate powder properties is selected for the AM machine, defects may occur in the AM product and quality, such as mechanical property, may be deteriorated. This review is introduced on typical types of AM processes using metal powder, factors affecting powder properties of AM products, metal powder manufacturing methods, and evaluation methods. ©2024 Japan Society of Powder and Powder Metallurgy.