Metal AM Summer 2021 by Inovar Communications

Metal AM Summer 2021

Industry News

nLIGHT, Optoprim and TUM collaborate to push the limits of Powder Bed Fusion processes nLIGHT, Inc., Vancouver, Washington, USA, launched the AFX-1000, a programmable high-power fibre laser, in November 2020. The laser has the ability to switch between a single-mode beam and other beam profiles without the use of free space optics, said to make the AFX-1000 an ideal beam source for applications in

Additive Manufacturing processes. In order to demonstrate the potential of the new beam profiles in powder bed fusion processes, nLIGHT and Optoprim collaborated with the Professorship of Laser-based Additive Manufacturing by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Katrin Wudy at Germany’s Technical University of Munich (TUM).

nLIGHT AFX-1000 with switchable donut profiles offers potential for widening and smoothing the melt pool and expanding the process window (Courtesy nLIGHT/Optoprim/TUM)

Titomic appoints Herbert Koeck as its new CEO Titomic Limited, Melbourne, Australia, has appointed Herbert Koeck as Chief Executive Officer. He succeeds Nobert Schulze, Interim CEO of Titomic, who will continue to support the company in a different role. For the last five years, Koeck has been a member of the executive management team of 3D Systems Corporation, where he was accountable for the sales and global orders of the group. This included influencing product development to ensure customer success. The company’s revenue for his final full year, 2020, was USD $557.2 million. Prior to this position, Koeck acted as the company’s senior VP for Europe and India.

“Herbert is a proven leader with deep Additive Manufacturing experience, hardcore marketing skills, business vision and ability to bring people together,” stated Dr Andreas Schwer, Titomic’s chairman. “His experience in bringing advanced technologies to customers around the world is exactly what Titomic needs as the company enters its next chapter focusing on commercialising its Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing (CSAM) technology, centred on building partnerships as well as joint ventures with customers. During this exciting time of transformation, Herbert is the right leader at the right time for Titomic.”

Metal Additive Manufacturing | Summer 2021

Some of the fundamental research questions for investigations with the AFX-1000 targeted in the collaborative effort include identifing which beam profiles enable an increased melt pool size combined with a smooth melt pool. The team will look at how the spatial change of the beam profile influences the temperature gradients and microstructure. The collaboration will also identify which processing strategies lead to process acceleration and simultaneous stabilisation. To date, experiments with the nLIGHT beam source highlight the potential for widening and smoothing the melt pool, as well as increasing process speed with the donut profiles. “This approach will change the way we use Additive Manufacturing with metals. It gives us the ability to tailor laser-based processing regarding faster and optimal processing conditions as well as the microstructure of parts e.g. through larger melt pools,” stated Prof Wudy. “We are excited to push the barriers of Additive Manufacturing with our partners of nLIGHT and Optoprim in the years to come.” www.nlight.net www.optoprim.de www.mw.tum.de/lbam

With this addition, Titomic’s executive management team now consists of Jeff Lang as CTO; Chris Healy, Chief Legal Officer and Joanna Walker, CFO. The transformation of the management team comes alongside many recent changes to the Titomic board of directors, which now consists of chairman Dr Andreas Schwer former CEO of SAMI; Mira Ricardel principal Chertoff Group and former White House official; business executive Humphrey Nolan; Dag W R Stromme, former Morgan Stanley Managing Director and private equity executive; business executive Richard Willson; and Titomic’s two co-founders, Richard Fox and Jeff Lang, the company’s current CTO. www.titomic.com

Vol. 7 No. 2