Powder bed fusion technology, which uses either laser, thermal energy, or an electron beam to melt and fuse material powder together, was claimed to have developed the world’s first 3D printer capable of manufacturing one-meter-sized parts by South Korea’s state-run nuclear energy research body. To design complex structural parts, 3D printing technology was combined with nuclear technology.
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Powder bed fusion (PBF) technology can be used to make high-value products that aren’t technically possible to make using traditional methods. Solidified melted powder can be stacked in layers. However, because the size of parts that can be manufactured with PBF equipment is only up to 50 centimeters, it can’t be used at industrial sites (19.7 inches). By developing a 3D printer that can manufacture parts up to 100 centimeters wide and 50 centimeters long, a research team led by Kim Hyun-gil from the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) has paved the way for the commercialization of PBF technology. The institute predicted that a printer capable of producing parts with a length of several meters could be developed.
“We hope it will be applied not only to high-tech nuclear technologies, but also to the manufacture of large parts in other industries such as energy, environment, defense, and space,” said Park Won-seok, the head of KAERI, in a statement on February 24.
Kim’s team collaborated with CSCAM, a metal cutting machinery company, to create five types of trial products made of nickel alloy materials, as well as a heat exchanger for a nuclear power plant. Researchers will seek to develop reverse design, which scans and manufactures the actual objects of discontinued parts, as well as the production of core components for ultra-small reactors for space and innovative small modular reactors, according to the institute.
By connecting laser sources and scanners side by side, the research team has devised “parallel expansion” technology to eliminate the size constraint of PBF 3D printing. To increase the available range to 1.0 m in width, two laser sources and scanners were each set up. The research team used a combination of experiments and simulation programs to establish variable values for laser speed and pattern for high precision. As a result, heat and stress-induced deformation can be predicted in advance, resulting in a defect-free connection area.
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