Evaluation of aged and recycled titanium powder during the additive manufacturing (AM) process is of chief importance for orthopedic device manufacturers. This presentation reviews a top-up recycling study that was carried out with an EOS M290 laser powder bed fusion machine, where the powder consumed during the builds was replenished with virgin powder at each sieve step. In order to capture powder degradation under typical industrial conditions, this study included a variety of builds—machine qualifications, trial part builds and serial part production. Both powder and AM bulk samples were evaluated at predetermined intervals throughout the study.

The Ti64 ELI powder shows minimal ageing behavior causing minimal changes to the AM bulk properties. Results show that both the recycled powder and AM bulk samples remain within the Ti64 ELI composition limits for 20 sieve cycles during a top-up powder recycling regime.

Learning Objectives

• Understanding of how Ti64 powder ages during a laser powder bed fusion process

• Effects of power recycling on powder properties and packing properties

• Examples of how to evaluate powder and bulk properties

Speaker