Electron beam melting machine

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The chair of Hybrid Additive Manufacturing was founded at the Ruhr University Bo-chum on March 1, 2018. One research focus is the powder bed fusion based additive manufacturing technology. Due to the currently limited availability of metallic materials and the comparatively early stage of development of these manufacturing processes, the production-oriented design of tailor-made materials (material design) on the one hand and process stability on the other hand are in the foreground of research.An electron beam melting system is applied as a major research instrumentation, which is able to melt and consolidate metallic powder materials to a dense component. In total, four projects will initially be addressed with this system. Due to the parallel-submitted proposal covering a laser beam melting system, the projects are divided into electron beam specific and correlating topics.The methodology for qualifying new materials addresses, for example, the processing of refractory metals by the electron beam melting process. These materials are charac-terized by a high resistance to heat and corrosion as well as high strength and hardness. A conventional processing of these materials is difficult to realize. However, electron beam melting has a high potential for processing refractory metals. The methodology for a sensor-based in-situ process optimization leads to a bet-ter understanding of phys-ical phenomena and temperature gradients during the build process. This is secured by an implementation of process monitoring systems inside of the machine.The method of vacuum high-temperature process management is used to investigate the influence of differing temperature application and energy source on the electron and laser beam melting process. Both major research devices allow a comparison of mate-rial properties due to the comparable temperature level and the vacuum environment. The analysis of the respective microstructure as a function of the temperature distribu-tion in the component represents the aim of the project.The methodology for a hybrid component manufacturing combines both related manu-facturing technologies. The production of a laser beam melted section on an electron beam melted base (and vice versa) leads to a significant gain in knowledge with regard to a hybrid workpiece generation. Thus, the microstructural analysis of both sections and the analysis of the joint is necessary. The implementation of the project requires specific technical requirements for the per-formance of the electron beam gun, process control and building chamber, as well as hardware and software compatibility. The proposed electron beam melting system is conceptually very well suited for the research and fulfills as the only plant the desired criteria.