Direct additive manufacturing of metal components
Additive manufacturing of metal components can be »direct« or »indirect«. In the »direct« production of metal components, the metal component with full-fledged properties is created directly by the additive assembly. In »indirect additive manufacturing«, 3D printing merely creates a green compact, which is then debinded in furnace processes and sintered into the desired metal component. This process chain closely resembles Metal Injection Molding (MIM, conventional manufacturing process of powder metallurgy).
At Fraunhofer IGCV, research is conducted exclusively on direct metal additive manufacturing processes. The following processes are possible with us:
- Laser-based powder bed fusion, LPBF
- High-pressure cold gas spraying
- Wire and arc-based Directed Energy Deposition (DED)
The research focus at Fraunhofer IGCV is on laser-based powder bed fusion, which also has the greatest importance in the industrial environment with a market share of about 70 percent.