USE OF A VIBRATING BUILD PLATFORM DURING POWDER-BED FUSION OF METALS USING A LASER BEAM

Powder-bed fusion of metals using a laser beam (PBF-LB/M) is an additive manufacturing technique with rising interest in industry and academia. One major topic of current research is to optimize the performance of parts manufactured by PBF-LB/M. The use of vibrations during the solidification of metals to improve their mechanical properties is well-known for metal casting and directed energy deposition. In this work, a vibrating build platform was used during the PBF-LB/M process to influence the microstructure of parts. Analyses show an increase in sample hardness by up to 12.3 % for the same process parameters. Especially for process parameters that produce parts with lower relative densities, vibrations have an influence on part density. With an increase in part density, this effect gets less pronounced.