Croom Medical – one of the rare companies that specialize in 3D printing tantalum, recently improved the production of First Light Fusion’s flagship product – Pressure Amplifier.
First Light Fusion focuses on the commercialization of fusion energy, a clean energy source. The company’s Pressure Amplifier is a proprietary piece of inertial-fusion hardware—part of its “target” design, combining both an amplifier and a fuel capsule. Ideal for use in space and defence, this product is a projectile (fired by a gas gun, coil gun, laser, or pulsed power machine) that impacts the amplifier. It is built with carefully shaped cavities that focus and multiply the pressure—converging shockwaves to intensify the force applied to the fuel capsule.
For the first time, tantalum components made via additive manufacturing have been shown to match the performance of traditionally machined components under shock compression up to pressures of five million atmospheres, enabling a faster, lower-cost production path, First Light explains in a press communication.
Through this application, Croom Medical goes beyond its scope of expertise and demonstrates the capabilities of 3D printed tantalum in sectors beyond the medical sector.
Using Croom’s TALOS™ laser-powder-bed-fusion process, the team was able to produce fully dense, ultra-pure, metallic components (like First Light’s amplifier) that are difficult and labor-intensive to manufacture by traditional methods.
Martin Gorman, Lead Shock Scientist at First Light Fusion, said: “3D printing tantalum gives us a reliable, cost-effective path to mass-produce our amplifiers – unlocking wide-ranging applications outside of inertial fusion, from materials research to defence.”
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