LPW Technology will be focusing on the ability of materials to drive improvement in metal Additive Manufacturing at this year’s AMUG event in St Louis, Missouri. Its ‘Workshop for the Generation of Additive Manufacturing Specific Powder Specifications’ aims to equip attendees with an understanding of the limitations of current standards for specification, and the effects of alloy variables on AM processing outcomes and how these can be controlled.
This years’s AMUG Conference takes place 8 – 12th April and on the final day between 1:30 – 3:00 pm. LPW, the specialist in AM metal powder manufacture and powder management solutions, will question current metal powder specifications’ suitability for AM.
“If the AM community doesn’t take control of quality standards for material specifications, then it could lose valuable production opportunities as AM is dismissed as unsuitable for applications that it would work well in,” says Ben Ferrar, COO of LPW.
“The current standards for metal powder specification for AM are basic, and don’t always reflect the huge leaps in understanding of the behaviour and performance of materials in AM processing that we have seen in recent years. We need specifications that are based on the applications’ needs rather than what suits the powder manufacturers.”
For metal powders to deliver AM built parts with the required properties, the powder specification must establish limits which are tight enough to ensure any variations do not have an effect on process and application performance, yet include sufficient tolerances to accommodate manufacturing and testing variance.
Not only can a metal powder move on from, it can also vary within, the current specification limits in terms of its chemistry and physical properties. This can result in issues with material processability during part manufacture or with the final mechanical properties of the part itself – potentially ruling out AM at the feasibility study stage.
Ben continues, “In this workshop our highly-qualified applications engineers will be sharing their experience of how current specs relate to performance, and suggesting a framework to develop AM specifications that will accelerate the adoption of AM for serial production.”
To register your interest in attending LPW’s workshop click here.
About LPW
Established in 2007, LPW is the market leader in the manufacture, development and processing of high-quality metal powders for additive manufacturing, and provides a comprehensive range of solutions and services for the AM industry.
LPW’s PowderRange is a series of fully optimised, off-the-shelf powders for AM, supplied to quality management standards AS 9120, AS 9100, ISO 9001 and ISO 13485, and dispatched within 24 hours of receipt of order. Every PowderRange powder is shipped with a test certificate, adding assurance that the consistency and specification have been checked and confirmed in LPW’s laboratories.
PowderLife is LPW’s AM suite of powders, products and solutions designed to support AM in production. AM metal powders are tailored to individual customer specifications with hardware and software solutions to deliver material traceability and control through repeated builds.
LPW Technology will be relocating its headquarters to its purpose-built, metal AM powder manufacturing facility near Liverpool, UK, in 2018. In June 2014, the company established its US operation, LPW Technology Inc., situated near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, providing analytical services, product inventory and sales support to North and South America.
From these locations the organisation supplies high quality, certified powders to a global customer base including the aerospace, medical and automotive industries. LPW has sales operations in Germany, Italy and France, and a global network of resellers in China, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey and Vietnam.
LPW and PowderLife are the registered trademarks of LPW Technology Ltd.
LPW Technology is the proud recipient of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade 2016.
Source: LPW Technology
