Materials producer Uniformity Labs (aka Uniformity) has qualified the UniFuse™ IN718 Nickel Alloy for Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF). This announcement follows the recent availability of a range of steel, aluminum, and titanium powders under the brand UniFuse™ for L-PBF and UniJet™ for binder jetting, with many others nearing availability.
High-performance scanning parameters have been designed for printing UniFuse™ IN718 60um layer thickness with lasers power at 400W. This achieved a 2.2X faster exposure time and superior, more uniform mechanical properties compared to competitors’lower layer thickness scan strategies targeting best-in-class mechanical properties. This throughput improvement is typical for UniFuse™ IN718 builds, the company says.
The higher tap density and optimized particle size distribution create a highly uniform, denser powder bed, yielding repeatable part builds at the highest throughput. This enables customers utilizing Uniformity powders to produce parts with improved and repeatable mechanical properties, even while printing at significantly higher build rates, utilizing thicker build layers and the more efficient use of the L-PBF lasers.
“With UniFuse™ IN718, we deliver best-in-class mechanical properties, surface finish, printing yield, and part reliability with substantially increased throughput printing at 60um layer thickness,” said Uniformity founder and CEO Adam Hopkins. “This is significant for advancing AM as a viable pillar for industrial manufacturing and shows that our technology and process deliver on the promise of no compromise additive manufacturing.”
The product release coincides with the independent, third-party material performance evaluation and validation tests for UniFuse™ IN718 conducted by Ajay Krishnan, research leader at EWI –Buffalo Manufacturing Works. Ajay will give a presentation titled – De-mystifying LPBF Throughput – at the upcoming Additive Manufacturing Users Group (AMUG) conference on March 22nd. His presentation will include some of his findings from his report.
The list below presents the mechanical and density properties of UniFuse™ IN718 as printed:
- 60um layer thickness, 400W
- > 99.95% density, 2.2 times the throughput with comparable properties compared to
- competitor 40um layer thickness printing
- Ultimate Tensile Strength (Rm z) – 990 ± 15 MPa
- Ultimate Tensile Strength (Rm xy) – 1064 ± 4 MPa
- Yield Strength (Rm z) – 614 ± 12 Mpa
- Yield Strength (Rm xy) – 744 ± 6 MPa
- Fracture Elongation (Rm z) – 36 ± 1.3
- Fracture Elongation (Rm xy) – 30 ± 1.1
- Surface roughness in the z direction no treatment (um) 6.4 ± 0.6
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