Future Days recap: The bright future of additive manufacturing
What do you imagine when you think about the future? Everyone has their own answer to this question, ranging from flying cars to personal goals, but one aspect is usually the same, no matter who you ask. The future will be better!
It’s famously difficult to quantify what ‘better’ actually means – economists and sociologists don’t always agree! – but since industrialization began in the 18th century, a better future for society has always involved faster, safer and more efficient manufacturing. Today, many of us are conscious that we’re watching the dawn of a new era as automation defines our new manufacturing era as ‘Industry 4.0’.
Future Days
This exciting and optimistic vision was the background to our recent Future Days event, which featured an engaging mix of presentations from industry experts in advanced materials, including additive manufacturing (AM). They shared their personal takes on what challenges and opportunities might be around the corner for the AM community, and what they think the best approaches are to ensure AM fulfils its incredible potential.
Expert insights
Prof. Dr. Ian Gibson focused on this exact topic in his presentation: ‘Find out all the latest insights about additive manufacturing’. He explored how the 3D printing and additive manufacturing world is developing today, where he thinks it will go tomorrow, and why he believes that excellent material characterization can unlock a whole world of possibilities in this rapidly evolving space. If you missed his fascinating insight, you can watch it back.
Zooming in from a macro-level view to a micro-level view, Dr. Paul Carpinone picked up on the materials characterization theme to discuss one of its most common – and most important – applications. His presentation, ‘Exploring the role and measurement of particle size and shape for powder-bed AM’, got into the details of why the properties of tiny particles can have a big impact on both the AM process and the finished product. Check out his presentation here
Practical solutions
So, we know that materials characterization is important, and we’ve heard all about where to apply it – but how is it measured? Is particle analysis difficult to implement? Fortunately, Dr. Anne Virden is on hand to explain in her practical hands-on session, ‘Overview of Malvern Panalytical’s solutions for particle size and shape analysis of AM powders’. She gives a laboratory introduction to the Mastersizer 3000 and Morphologi 4 – two standard industry instruments that take the guesswork out of powder AM.
As any production manager can tell you, nothing will go to plan 100% of the time. As long as you know what might go wrong, you can prepare – and Dr. Violeta Uricanu helps us do just that in her presentation on ‘Detecting contaminants in metal powders using X-ray fluorescence’. When metal powders are contaminated they pose a serious risk to quality and safety, so it’s vital that any problems are detected and resolved early. X-ray fluorescence is a great way to achieve this in a modern production environment.
Ensuring the quality and consistency of metal powders in AM doesn’t have to be a problem-solving task, as Adam Hall explains in his talk exploring ‘Powdercleanse: An automated closed-loop powder processing system for additive manufacturing’. The system enables high volumes of powders to be validated, which will be critical in ensuring safety and controlling quality as AM scales up to meet increasing demand in the future.
Safety and confidence for the future
Once the powder has been validated, the part can be manufactured with confidence. Right? Well – yes, but it still needs to be analyzed to make sure that the manufacturing process itself has not introduced any weaknesses or flaws. This is where we meet Dr. Paul O’Meara, who explains how X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis plays a key role in studying the manufacturing processes themselves and their effects on the materials. By using a non-destructive technique like XRD, it’s possible to check the microstructures in the final product and test their phase composition, crystallite orientation, residual stress/strain and more. His presentation, ‘Non-destructive testing of additive manufacturing parts using X-ray powder diffraction’, explains it all.
Together, the expert talks provide a fascinating walkthrough of an AM process – and each addresses a key area of concern as AM prepares to take on a bigger role in manufacturing industries worldwide. With excellent materials characterization and careful analysis, AM offers a step toward a better, brighter future for all of us.
We hope you enjoy these talks and join us for our next Future Days event!
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