Investigation on Geometrical Accuracy and Their Measuring Capabilities in Electron Beam Melting for Different Machine Generations

摘要

During the last years, additive manufacturing via selective electron beam melting (EBM) showed high potential to build parts with less design restrictions e.g. due to thin support structure needed. However, there are still some geometrical restrictions in dimensioning and part accuracy especially on small parts. In addition to that, the main goal of the new generation of machines is to achieve higher build rates in order to decrease the build time. This in turn lead to an additional decrease in part accuracy. To investigate this proposition, a geometrical demonstrator was manufactured in Ti-6Al-4V on an Arcam Q20 system with a 90 μm build theme. The demonstrator involves features in build direction such as rectangles, cylinders, holes, and gabs from 0,1 to 2 mm. Furthermore, some features are built in different angles to the build plane. The measuring of the part is done by 3D-scanning and computer tomography (CT). The results are summarised to design recommendation for small design structures on EBM Ti-6Al-4Vparts and compared to previous investigations on an Arcam A2X system.