Journal of Materials Processing Technology 111 (2001) 210213

The manufacturing of hard tools from metallic powders by

selective laser melting
F. Abe*, K. Osakada, M. Shiomi, K. Uematsu, M. Matsumoto
Department of Mechanical Science, Faculty of Engineering Science, Osaka University, 1-3 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-8531, Japan

Abstract

To make strong metallic parts directly from metallic powders, the selective laser melting method, in which metallic powders are
successively melted and solidied in a microscopic zone, is proposed. From a series of tests on some metal powders, two types of solidied
shapes are observed: successive balling and linear solidication. The second is suitable for the process. A nickel alloy powder used for
cladding steel surfaces is found to be a good candidate for making dies. In making 3D shapes, deection and cracking are caused in the
product by rapid heating and quenching. To solve the problems, a dual laser scanning system in which YAG and CO2 laser beams are offset
a small amount from each other and scanned is proposed. From the results of three-point bending tests and Vickers hardness measurements
on formed linear specimens, reheating by CO2 after heating by YAG improves the material's properties. It is considered that slow cooling or
reheating after melting can eliminate residual stress and improve ductility. # 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Rapid prototyping; Laser; Metallic powders; Melting; Tool making

1. Introduction [6,7], thermal stress and/or undesirable metallic structure

Rapid prototyping is a material additive manufacturing
process which enables quick production of physical models
from CAD data [1]. Plastics, wax and paper are currently
used for rapid prototyping. A few machines which can
produce metallic models directly from powders have come
on to the market quite recently [2]. The commercial
machines employ the selective laser sintering (SLS) process
[3] in which metal powders of one chemical composition are
sintered or joined by other powders with a lower melting
point. However, the metallic models made by the SLS
process do not have enough strength and density to be used
as dies and tools for metal forming.
In order to make strong or hard metallic models directly
from metallic powders, the authors proposed a new forming
method, selective laser melting, in which the metallic pow-
ders are completely melted without retaining much porosity
[4,5]. The concept of the proposed selective laser melting
process is shown in Fig. 1. In this process, metallic powders
of a single composition are successively melted in a micro-
scopic zone by laser energy, differently from SLS in which
only a part of the powders are melted. Since volume change
during melting and rapid solidication during cooling occur
results. In order to solve the problems, a dual laser scanning
system is proposed.
2. Selection of material
2.1. Experimental procedure of single scan test
A pulsed Nd:YAG laser (LUXSTAR) with a mean power
of 50 W and a maximum peak power of 3 kW is used. The
shoulder diameter of the YAG laser beam is about 0.8 mm,
and the beam is carried through an optical ber and the ber
head is moved by a xy plotter (Fig. 1). The laser beam
focused on the surface of the powder. To prevent oxidation
during forming, the processing is performed in a chamber
lled with nitrogen gas. In the experiments reported in this
section, the metallic powder bed was laid down to a depth of
10 mm and the laser beam traversed it linearly in a single
scan. The laser beam had at a peak power of 1 kW, pulse
duration of 1 ms, repetition rate of 50 Hz and scanning speed
of 2 mm s 1.
2.2. Experimental materials

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: 81-6-6850-6197; fax: 81-6-6850-6199. To nd best metallic powders for dies, some materials
E-mail address: fumi@me.es.osaka-u.ac.jp (F. Abe). were tested: aluminum (Al), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), stainless

0924-0136/01/$ see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 4 - 0 1 3 6 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 5 2 2 - 2
 F. Abe et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 111 (2001) 210213
Fig. 1. Process of selective laser melting.
steel (SUS 316L), chromium (Cr) and nickel-base alloys. As
is shown later, a nickel-base material is found to be a good
candidate. The nickel-base alloy powder has a chemical
composition of 83.6% Ni, 9.4% Cr, 1.8% B, 2.8% Si, 2.0%
Fe, 0.4% C and is used for cladding because the hardness
HV > 600 and corrosion resistance are very high. The
average diameter of the powder particle is about 75 mm. The
apparent density of the powder is 3140 kg m 3 which is
about 51% of real density. The liquidus temperature is
1503 K and the solidus temperature is 1253 K.
2.3. Results
Fig. 2 shows the features of solidied metals in the single
scan experiment. They are classied into two types: `balling'
and `linear solidication'. In the cases of Al and SUS 316L
powders, spherical solid balls are left on the powder [4,5]. It
is considered that the balls are formed by the action of
surface tension in the liquid state [8], and that the phenom-
enon is related to the formation of oxidized lm on the
solidied parts with the small amount of oxygen left in the
powders. The oxidized lm hinders the joining the already
solidied part with the newly melted part. In the case of
linear solidication, some different appearances of the
formed bars were observed depending on the shape of the
cavity. When the laser beam was irradiated on Cu, Fe and Cr
powders, a large groove was left in the linearly solidied bar
due to shrinkage during melting as shown in Fig. 3(a). From
a series of tests, the nickel-base alloy powder was found to
form round cross sections without cavities as shown in
Fig. 3(b): it is used in the subsequent experiments.
Fig. 2. Solidied features of metals in selective laser melting.
211
Fig. 3. Photograph of a cross section of linear specimens for (a) Fe and (b)
nickel-base alloy (peak power: 1 kW; pulse duration: 1 ms; repetition rate:
50 Hz; scanning speed: 2 mm s 1).
3. 3D manufacturing by YAG laser
To form 3D shapes, the scanned layer is lowered on a
platform, the next layer of powder is laid and the scanning by
YAG laser is repeated. In order to produce the models from
CAD data, software was developed for controlling the
experimental machine. Some 3D hard models were made.
An example is shown in Fig. 4. This model, a die for bevel
gear forming, is 45 mm  35 mm  10:6 mm in size and has
a relative density of about 88% and has a Vickers hardness of
about HV740. The thickness of each layer is about 0.1 mm.
Some problems were found during 3D production: deec-
tion, cracking and a rough surface. Thermal stress and
inappropriate metallic structure from rapid heating and rapid
quenching are considered to be the main causes for deec-
tion and cracking. In order to reduce the defects, a dual laser
scanning system is proposed.
4. Dual laser scanning
4.1. Experimental procedure of dual laser scanning
Fig. 5 illustrates the experimental equipment of the dual
laser scanning method. An RF-excited 25 W carbon dioxide
laser with a quasi CW mode (Synrad 48-2 TEM00) is used
together with the pulsed Nd:YAG laser. The YAG and CO2
212 F. Abe et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 111 (2001) 210213
Fig. 4. Photograph of a bevel gear-forming die model (size: 45 mm
35 mm  10:6 mm; peak power: 1 kW; pulse duration: 1 ms; repetition
rate: 50 Hz; thickness of powder: 0.1 mm; scanning speed: 4 mm s 1).
lasers are xed in space. For scanning, a xy table on which
the container of powder and the chamber is xed, is moved
with a speed of 2 mm s 1. The YAG laser beam is focused on
the powder surface with a beam diameter of about 0.8 mm.
The YAG laser is used at a peak power of 1 kW, pulse
duration of 1 ms, and repetition rate of 50 Hz. The CO2 laser
beam is defocused to have a beam diameter of 2 mm and
irradiated on the powder surface and is used at a power of
17 W. The dual laser beams are scanned for 45 mm linearly
only once on the powder bed of 10 mm thickness. The
formed bars have diameters ranging from 1.3 to 1.9 mm.
YAG and CO2 laser beams are offset from one another:
beam offset is dened in Fig. 6. Thus (a) the beams are
coaxial, the beam offset is zero; (b) the beam offset is minus
(preheating), when the CO2 laser irradiates the powder
before the YAG laser; (c) the beam offset is plus (reheating),
when the CO2 laser follows the YAG laser. In order to
evaluate the mechanical strength of the test pieces, the
maximum bending strength and Vickers hardness are mea-
sured. The maximum bending strength is calculated from
three-point bending test with a distance between the sup-
ports of 24 mm. For calculation of bending strength, the test
pieces are assumed to be elastic and the shape of the cross
section is approximated to an ellipse.
Fig. 5. Experimental equipment in the dual laser scanning system.
Fig. 6. Denition of beam offset: (a) coaxial; (b) preheating; (c) reheating.
4.2. Effects of dual laser scanning
Fig. 7 shows the relationship between beam offset and
maximum bending strength. The results for YAG laser
irradiation without CO2 laser irradiation are shown by the
open symbols and the results with the dual laser are given by
the solid symbols. In this gure, the circles mean that the
bending load was applied from the irradiated side, and the
triangles mean that the load was applied from the powder
side. The dual laser scanning causes higher maximum
bending strengths than the YAG laser alone. When the beam
offset is 2 mm, i.e. the part is reheated, the maximum
bending strength is the largest. The maximum bending
strength of the specimen loaded from the powder side
is higher than that loaded from the irradiated side. This
result may be explained by the surface of the irradiated side
being smoother than the powder side and provides better
ductility.
Fig. 8 shows the relationship between the beam offset and
micro-Vickers hardness of the cross section. Vickers hard-
ness decreases as the beam offset increases. When the beam
offset is 2 mm, the Vickers hardness is minimum (about
HV650) but is hard enough for dies. Because the bending
strength shows a maximum value at this offset, the ductility
Fig. 7. Relationship between beam offset and maximum bending strength
(YAG laser peak power: 1 kW; pulse duration: 1 ms; repetition rate:
50 Hz; CO2 laser peak power: 17 W).
 F. Abe et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 111 (2001) 210213
Fig. 8. Relationship between beam offset and micro-Vickers hardness of
cross section (YAG laser peak power: 1 kW; pulse duration: 1 ms;
repetition rate: 50 Hz; CO2 laser peak power: 17 W).
is considered to increase as the hardness decreases and
causes a larger fracture strain.
Since the slow cooling or reheating after melting by CO2
laser results in an increase of bending strength, the dual laser
scanning system is expected to prevent deection and
cracking of the dies during forming.
5. Conclusions
1. In the cases of aluminum and stainless steel powders, a
single scan of a laser beam over a powder bed caused the
melted part to form spheres due to surface tension and
oxidized lm. A nickel-base alloy used for cladding did
not show this and is suitable for die making: it formed a
continuous track without a groove or cavity after
solidication.
2. It is shown that a model die can be formed by using
the nickel-base alloy, but some defects such as deec-
213
tion and cracking of models are observed after 3D
forming.
3. The dual laser scanning system improves the ductility of
the formed material when the part melted and solidied
by YAG laser is reheated by CO2 laser with an
appropriate time delay.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Prof. T. Childs of Leeds
University, UK for his advice in preparing the manuscript. It
is acknowledged that F. Abe is a research fellow of Japan
Society for the Promotion of Science.
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