Chris Allen, Laser Powder Bed Fusion R&D Lead at Uniformity Labs, delivered a presentation at the AMC Quarterly Meeting — Spring 2023 in Rochester, NY, on June 1, 2023.

This work explores the impact of powder characteristics and laser parameters on the printing of thin AlSi10Mg structures via laser powder bed fusion. Typically, the minimum thickness and dimensional accuracy of printed structures are limited by the size distribution of the powder feedstock, the characteristics of the printer’s laser optics, as well as laser and machine settings. The ability to print stable thin wall geometries is important for heat exchanger, consumer electronics, and energy storage applications. Using Uniformity Lab’s multimodal powders at 30 µm layers at build-up rates of 70cc/hr, fins with consistent thicknesses equal in width to the powder’s coarsest constituents was achieved. Fins averaged 80-250 µm wide with standard deviations of about 10 µm for both plasma and gas atomized feedstocks.