Page 54 - ESAM-1-4

Engineering Science in

Additive Manufacturing

ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
Understanding the reusability of Ti6Al4V powder

in laser powder bed fusion

Nathaniel W. Zuckschwerdt and Amit Bandyopadhyay*
W. M. Keck Biomedical Materials Research Lab, School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering,
Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, United States of America

Abstract
This study aimed to determine the effects of how powder degrades in quality from use
in the laser powder bed fusion process and investigate what changes in the powder
cause defects in finished parts. It was determined that the reused powder affected
the finished part quality, resulting in an increased number of lack-of-fusion pores. This
was due to a change in the size distribution of the powder particles, characterized by
an increase in larger sizes and a significant decrease in smaller sizes. There was an
11% increase in defective particles over the five prints that went through the sieving
process, as well as an increase of ~2% of particles >63 μm, resulting in less powder
that could be reused after each print. The results enabled the determination of the
life of the powder due to the degradation of the powder from the differing property
changes caused by the reuse of the powder.

*Corresponding author: Keywords: Ti6Al4V; Laser powder bed fusion; Powder degradation; Additive
Amit Bandyopadhyay manufacturing; 3D printing
(amitband@wsu.edu)
Citation: Zuckschwerdt NW,
Bandyopadhyay A. Understanding
the reusability of Ti6Al4V powder in 1. Introduction
laser powder bed fusion. Eng Sci
Add Manuf. 2025;1(4):025420028. In the world of additive manufacturing (AM), most innovation and research efforts
doi: 10.36922/ESAM025420028 have focused on developing new, innovative materials and processes. Thus, it is of great
Received: October 13, 2025 importance to determine the effect that the starting materials will have on the finished
Revised: November 5, 2025 products. Without this information, researchers could be pursuing an optimization
of the parameters while reusing the same powder between each print, running into
Accepted: November 5, 2025 problems with the print that are not due to parameters, but instead are due to increasing
Published online: November 17, issues with the starting materials resulting from the reuse of the powders.
2025
With the desire to create processes that are as efficient as possible and use as few
Copyright: © 2025 Author(s).
This is an Open-Access article resources as possible, the world is looking towards AM for its future. From uses in
distributed under the terms of the the aerospace industry to biomedical implants, many items being made today could
Creative Commons Attribution be manufactured in the future with AM. In the biomedical field alone, over 500,000
1-6
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, implants made using AM are put into the human body per year in the United States.
provided the original work is Within the field of aerospace, it takes years for a part to go from initial designs to being
properly cited. in a production aircraft, with every little thing about the part needing to be documented
Publisher’s Note: AccScience and examined, from the starting material to how each step of the manufacturing process
Publishing remains neutral with needs to be verified, such that the process and part can be certified to be used in aircraft.
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional In many of these processes, the end product is thoroughly examined to determine how
affiliations. the various parameters that can be adjusted have impacted the part being produced,

Volume 1 Issue 4 (2025) 1 doi: 10.36922/ESAM025420028