Characterizing your Additive Manufacturing feedstock

par John Duffy, Friday, 23rd September 2022

As Additive Manufacturing continues to transition from a prototyping tool to a direct manufacturing process, the availability of industry standards and norms becomes increasingly important. Especially in regulated sectors such as aerospace, medical, and oil and gas, where parts often need to be certified and supply chains validated.

As stated by Prof Dr-Ing Christian Seidel in his article Metal Additive Manufacturing: Why standards lay the foundation for continued industry growth: “Standards serve as a common language that promotes the flow of goods between buyer and seller and protects their general welfare”. They have several key benefits including “Specifying requirements for processes, materials, design, and test methods”.

Material specifications and characteristics are crucial for Additive Manufacturing since the properties and consistency of a printed part are highly dependent on the feedstock material. Even more so when we are referring to powder feedstocks. Their packing and flow behavior is greatly influenced by the individual particles making up the bulk – particle size, particle shape, moisture content etc.

Also, as David Hardacre of LRQA discussed in his webinar “Closing the Additive Manufacturing certification gap”, feedstock characterization is a pre-requisite for successful part certification. The key requirements for this are given in ISO/ASTM 52907: Additive manufacturing – Feedstock materials – Methods to characterize metal powders.

This document provides technical specifications for metallic powders intended to be used in additive manufacturing and covers several key aspects; sampling, particle size distribution, chemical composition, powder flow, contamination, and morphology.

It also provides a list of methods suitable for particle size (and shape) analysis, including laser diffraction, dynamic light scattering, static image analysis, and dynamic image analysis. All techniques that Malvern Panalytical can provide. We are also a leading supplier of X-ray fluorescence spectrometers which is another technique referenced in this standard – for determining the chemical composition of metallic powders. So if you need any help or support in characterizing or qualifying your feedstock materials for additive manufacturing then please get in touch.