OCTOBER 20238MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY INSIGHTSIN MY OPINIONBy Gardner Trask, Additive Manufacturing and Innovation Design Manager, BoydMETAL ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING 101Additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing of metal has recently gained a lot of momentum in several different industries. The most common metal AM techniques include powder bed fusion (using lasers or electron beam technology), directed energy deposition (using lasers, electron beam, or plasma arc technology), and binder jetting.Powder bed fusion (PBF) produces parts by dispensing a thin layer of powder in the build volume. These parts are then sintered out of the powder using either a laser (LPBF) or an electron beam (EBM-PBF), and this process is repeated until each part is completed. This process has been widely used in the aerospace, automotive, medical, and energy industries. LPBF is typically slower than other methods but will have Gardner Trask
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