While additive manufacturing (AM) techniques have revolutionized metal parts design complexity, the traditional laser beams could lead to defects and poor mechanical performance.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is exploring alternative shapes to the Gaussian beams commonly employed in high-power laser printing processes such as laser powder bed fusion (LBPF). In a paper published by Science Advances, researchers experimented with exotic optical beam shapes known as Bessel beams—reminiscent of bullseye patterns—which possess a number of unique properties such as self-healing and non-diffraction. They discovered that the application of these types of beams reduced the likelihood of pore formation and “keyholing,” a porosity-inducing phenomenon in LPBF exacerbated by the use of Gaussian beams.  

New car registrations by fuel type in August 2021, compared to August 2020 and 2019 (Courtesy JATO)

According to data from 26 European markets, electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrids outsold diesel vehicles by 10,100 units in August, representing 21% of all cars sold in the month. Even with an increase in sales of EV’s and hybrids, new car registrations overall reported a decline of 18% to 713,714 units, marking the lowest recorded volume in August since 2014.

The 2021 Howard I. Sanderow Outstanding Technical Paper Award has been selected, and this year's winning paper is "Mix Solution for High Green-Strength and Green Machining" by Amber Tims, Roland Warzel, Bo Hu, North American Höganäs and Per Knutsson, Asa Ahlin, Angelica Hansen, Höganäs AB. The paper was selected from among the highly qualified manuscripts that were presented at the PowderMet2021 conference in Orlando and critically evaluated for the prestigious award.

The leading American technical conferences on powder metallurgy (PM) and metal additive manufacturing (AM) will be held June 12-15, 2022, at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon. 

It was another successful year for the PM Parts Compacting/Tooling Seminar. The seminar, held about every other year, dates to 1989 and continues to educate a variety of people throughout the industry, mainly catering to powder metallurgy parts and product fabricators.

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The future may belong to electric cars, but for U.S. automakers, heavy PM-containing trucks will rule for years to come. Automakers in North America plan to build more big pickups and sport utility vehicles than electric vehicles well into the late 2020s, chasing sales trends that run counter to the Biden administration's goal of boosting EVs to half the market by 2030, according to internal production forecasts viewed by Reuters.

The metal AM sailboat rudder suspension. (Courtesy Fehrmann Alloys)

A boat equipped with a metal additive manufactured (AM) aluminum alloy rudder suspension helped Australia win a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. The parts exhibited good strength, high ductility, and corrosion resistance, and the parts were required to have the same mechanical properties as their cast counterparts. The aluminum alloy selected can be used for metal AM, sand casting, pressure casting and mold casting, with the mechanical properties of the material said to remain very similar in all processes.

Moon  ©NASA

British engineers who are perfecting a technique for transforming moondust into oxygen have made a breakthrough that could shape the future of space exploration. Using specially designed pilot reactors, engineers have successfully extracted air from simulated moonrock, leaving behind kilos of metal powder that could one day be used to build lunar habitats. This is the first time the by-product has been produced in these quantities.

ORNL channel fasteners for Framatome’s boiling water reactor fuel assembly (Courtesy Framatome/ORNL)

A collaboration between Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and France’s Framatome, has produced four metal AM 316 stainless steel fuel assembly brackets.  The components are currently in operation at TVA’s Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama.

Two GE Aviation facilities producing advanced jet engine components recently passed major production milestones—one facility shipped the 100,000^th CMC turbine shroud, the other the 100,000^th metal AM fuel nozzle tip.

CMCs, jet engine additively manufactured fuel nozzle GE Aviation