Page 59 - ESAM-1-4

Engineering Science in
Additive Manufacturing Reusability of Ti6Al4V powder in LPBF

A B Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Author contributions

Conceptualization: Amit Bandyopadhyay
Formal analysis: Nathaniel W. Zuckschwerdt
Figure 4. Optical microscope imaging of the ground and polished Investigation: Nathaniel W. Zuckschwerdt
surfaces of the printed parts. (A) Part printed from the new powder. Methodology: All authors
(B) Part printed from the 3-use powder.
Writing–original draft: Nathaniel W. Zuckschwerdt
Writing–review & editing: Amit Bandyopadhyay
quality in the LPBF process when powders are being reused.
Powder flowability can change along with the powder Ethics approval and consent to participate
particle size distribution due to the heat flux resulting
from laser heating during printing. In our study, about Not applicable.
2% of the powders were found to be unusable after each Consent for publication
print run. However, this number depends on the powder
chemistry, the area of the print-bed used for printing parts, Not applicable.
and the volume of unused powder, as compared to the used Availability of data
ones. Finally, the duration of the print will also impact the
unused powder quality, where longer prints will have a Data will be made available on reasonable request to the
higher chance of rejected powders. corresponding author.
4. Conclusion References

In this study, the effect on Ti6Al4V powder during the 1. Bandyopadhyay A, Heer B. Additive manufacturing of
LPBF process was examined at three points during five multi-material structures. Mater Sci Eng Rep. 2018;129:1-16.
prints with the same powder. Over the five prints, the doi: 10.1016/j.mser.2018.04.001
percentage of defective powder particles increased by 2. Bandyopadhyay A, Ghosh S, Boccaccini AR, Bose S. 3D
~11%. Each print resulted in ~1.5% less powder being printing of biomedical materials and devices. J Mater Res.
reusable, which was discovered through the sieving 2021;36(19):3713-3724.
process. The angle of repose of reusable powder improved doi: 10.1557/s43578-021-00407-y
by ~2°, resulting in improved flowability. Parts printed 3. Bandyopadhyay A, Ciliveri S, Guariento S, Zuckschwerdt N,
with used powder contained higher amounts of lack-of- Hogg WW. Fatigue behavior of additively manufactured
fusion porosity. The density of parts was within a range Ti3Al2V alloy. Mater Sci Addit Manuf. 2023;2(3):1705.
of >98%. There was no change to the microhardness doi: 10.36922/msam.1705
of finished parts with the reused powder. Our results
showed that the occurrence of defects correlates with the 4. Pasang T, Budiman AS, Wang JC, et al. Additive
weight fraction of the powder passing through the sieves, manufacturing of titanium alloys - enabling
re-manufacturing of aerospace and biomedical components.
providing a simpler means of assessing powder quality Microelectron Eng. 2023;270:111935.
for the LPBF process.
doi: 10.1016/j.mee.2022.111935
Acknowledgments 5. Alammar A, Kois JC, Revilla-León M, Att W. Additive
manufacturing technologies: Current status and future
None.
perspectives. J Prosthodont. 2022;31:4-12.
Funding doi: 10.1111/jopr.13477
The authors would like to acknowledge financial support 6. Xiong Y, Tang Y, Zhou Q, Ma Y, Rosen DW. Intelligent
from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal additive manufacturing and design: State of the art and
and Skin Diseases under Grant Number R01 AR078241. future perspectives. Addit Manuf. 2022;59:103139.
The content is solely the authors’ responsibility and does doi: 10.1016/j.addma.2022.103139
not necessarily represent the National Institutes of Health’s 7. Gruber H, Henriksson M, Hryha E, Nyborg L. Effect of
official views. powder recycling in electron beam melting on the surface

Volume 1 Issue 4 (2025) 6 doi: 10.36922/ESAM025420028