Last week at RAPID+TCT 2024 was also the place for “smart partnerships”, a term highlighted by Marie Langer, CEO of EOS, during the executive panel series. One example that illustrates that is the Materials Consortium (MC) founded by Dyndrite, Constellium, Elementum3D and Sandvik.

The Materials Consortium (MC) comprises select metal AM powder producers who collaborate to generate and release open parameter datasets with testing data and reproducible toolpath scripts for their materials. The ultimate goal remains to widen the range of usable materials, extend productivity and accelerate the adoption of metal AM in production environments.

The latest material producer that joins this consortium is Equispheres. As part of this consortium, the company will develop, test and publicly release parameter sets for its materials, including its NExP-1 line of aluminum powders for Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) applications.

For those who do not know, Equispheres provides powders that serve for the production of metal parts in volume. Its atomization technology enables manufacturers to increase print speeds up to nine times higher than industry standards, thereby lowering production costs by up to 80%.

In a recent demonstration, Equispheres and their partner Aconity3D used Dyndrite LPBF Pro’s advanced laser control capabilities to successfully print a representative valve component in 70% less time than the legacy process, with improved surface roughness compared to prior software controls. Building on work previously completed with Aconity3D and their 3kW laser system, the team was able to leverage the Dyndrite software to retain significant print time reduction while also retaining superior as-printed surface quality. The part was printed on an AconityTWO, with bulk areas printed at a 120µm layer height using a high-powered beam-shaped laser and surfaces at 60µm with a 1kW Gaussian laser (see image). This combination of rapid production speeds and high quality surface finish paves the way for new applications and possibilities for additive manufacturing (AM) users, a press communication recalls.

The Materials Consortium (MC) hosted its first event at the Mimo Technik Facility in Carson, CA last week, on June 24th. Each member showcased their latest achievements and disclosed initial sets of process parameters. Highlights of the session included updates on notable materials such as Constellium Aheadd® CP1, Sandvik Osprey C18150, and Elementum 3D A2024-RAM2TM.

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