Recycling the powder in laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) additive manufacturing can significantly reduce the cost of the overall process. However, laser interactions with powder can potentially degrade recycled powder quality and the printability of the material made with recycled powder. In this research, we investigate the effects of powder recycling on LPBF additive manufacturing of Al-Sc-Mg alloy. Ten consecutive L-PBF builds are run, first using virgin Al-Sc-Mg powder and then using recycled powder from the previous build. Virgin powder and ten batches of recycled powder collected after each build are sampled and imaged using a scanning electron microscope to check the surface and the cross-sections. Computer vision is used to extract features such as powder size distribution, the number of satellite particles, and particle morphology of the powder batches. Also, the bulk flowability of the powder batches is measured, which is linked with features extracted from powder images.
Project sponsor: Rusal