Production of powders for metal additive manufacturing applications using surface grinding

Abstract

Metal powders for additive manufacturing (AM) applications are commonly produced using atomization techniques, which are known to be expensive, capital intensive and highly inflexible. In this work, we explore an alternative route for producing metal powders by the use of surface grinding. We demonstrate the production of nearly monodisperse AISI 52100 steel powders for AM applications. The formation of these powder particles is analyzed using material characterization techniques. We then evaluate the usability of the produced powders for metal AM using a custom-built directed energy deposition setup. Post-process analysis of laser-assisted deposition tracks shows that our powders perform just as well as conventional gas-atomized powders, resulting in void and inclusion-free metallurgical bonding.