Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing)

Additive manufacturing technology has been recently developed to a stage where it can be routinely used to manufacture high-value components. Selective Laser Melting commonly utilizes single or multiple high power (100-400W) fiber lasers to raster scan, melt, and fuse layers of metallic powdered feedstock. A laser spot typically 100 μm in diameter, scanning at a speed of up to 2000 mm/s (dependent on material, layer thickness, etc.) is used to process layers of pre-deposited powder (typically 20–50 μm layer thickness). However this laser raster scanning method is high cost, energy inefficient and encounters significant limitations on output productivity due to the rate of feedstock melting. Direct Diode Laser melting provides a lower cost alternative and potentially higher productivity. The laser diodes can operate at shorter wavelengths than conventional fiber lasers, thus enabling more efficient energy absorption for specific materials. There is also almost unlimited possibilities for multi-channel laser diode systems that can significantly improve the productivity. AKELA offers mutiple laser diode modules for additive manufacturing, such as ALC-915-70000 and ALC-445-20000. We have also developed a multi-channel system for this application.