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Velo3D: Support-free serial AM
Velo3D: How a ‘support-free’ Laser Powder Bed Fusion process could remove roadblocks to serial Additive Manufacturing With its Sapphire machine and Flow build preparation software capable of highly-controlled, virtually support-free Additive Manufacturing, Velo3D is pushing the limits of what is possible with Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF). Since launching its first machine in 2018, the California-based company has seen success with a range of highly complex parts which would challenge even the most experienced AM engineer. In this article, Zach Murphree, Velo3D’s Vice President of Technical Partnerships, explains the key factors which set the company’s process apart from the wider AM market.
There is a misconception in the Additive Manufacturing world that Zach Murphree, Vice President of Technical Partnerships at Velo3D, is on a mission to clear up. The scaffold-like structures that everyone in the industry refers to as ‘supports’ are in reality, he says, anchors. They are used to keep the layers of fused metal powder from peeling up and away from the previously-built layers or build plate below, rather than to support the layers above and prevent their collapse. “The term ‘support’ is really a holdover from plastic printing,” he told Metal AM magazine. “Here, you need support structures because you’re fighting gravity, and the part would distort or even collapse without them. With L-PBF, however, you’re fighting the metal’s tendency to curl upwards, especially at angles of 45˚ or less. If you don’t anchor these surfaces down, your recoater blade will eventually smash into them, damaging the workpiece, the blade, and possibly even the machine.”
Vol. 5 No. 3 © 2019 Inovar Communications Ltd
This ‘taco shell effect’ is not unlike what happens when two sheets of unrestrained metal are butt-welded together. In AM, however, any unrestrained metal can lead to build failures, hence
the need for temporary structures that later require costly, labourintensive machining and grinding to remove. And it is this secondary post-processing – more than any other manufacturing constraint
Fig. 1 Velo3D’s Sapphire Additive Manufacturing system
Metal Additive Manufacturing | Autumn/Fall 2019
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