Individualized production by means of high power Selective Laser Melting

Selective Laser Melting is one of the rapid manufacturing technologies that enable the production of complex shaped individual parts with series-identical mechanical properties without the need for part-specific tooling or downstream sintering processes, etc. However, the state-of-the-art process and cost efficiency is not yet suited for series production. In order to improve this efficiency and enable SLM to enter series production it is indispensable to increase the build rate significantly by means of increased laser power and larger beam diameters. Hence, a new prototype machine tool including a kW laser and a multi-beam system is developed and first experimental results are shown. (C) 2010 CIRP.