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Marcup Marcup is offline
Almost Retired
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: Ft. Worth, Tx
Posts: 17
Being able to make a small part just by creating a solid model gives you the illusion that the part will be great.

Actually, it is difficult to insure the material properties are consistent and match what you are use to using.
You need a great deal of experience with the particular material, machine and materials testing to know what the properties are.

Typically the price for parts is much higher than for "normal" processes - assuming you are making more than a few.
The small lot can be cheaper, but there is the problem of knowing the material properties.

If you are going to make parts with cavities and the parts are going to be highly loaded, the rough interior surfaces can possibly cause cracking under repetative load.

Most of the powder not used in a production is treated as hazardous waste (Ti in the example I checked) and not reused due to product consistency issues.
Most metals cannot be used in this process. Ti and stainless steel are "common". Aluminum will not produce useful parts (low material properties and were not offered.

On the other hand, there have been some well developed "supermetal" alloys which were successful (jet engine parts) and cheaper in small production runs.

The technology is changing all the time. Lots of research

The Air Force thought they could make spare parts for old aircraft (out of production) by just copying the shape of the aluminum parts and make them in titanium.
They quickly realized that the increased stiffness of Ti would potentially cause increased loading in adjacent parts and cause them to fail - unless the adjacent parts were also redesigned. Which then progressed to the next parts, etc, etc.

This is not a one size fits all technology.

But very interesting. And very expensive machines.
Old 03-09-2017, 10:27 AM
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