Closing the Additive Manufacturing certification gap

How materials characterization can help qualify materials for additive manufacturing

From oil and gas to aerospace and automotive, additive manufacturing (AM) is increasingly widely used across a range of industries. So, it’s no surprise that more and more additive manufacturers are looking to move away from producing prototypes, toward products that will actually reach the market. This is opening new opportunities for ultra-light components, personalized pharmaceuticals, and even 3D-printed neighborhoods. Exciting times!

Mind the qualification gaps…

But there’s one major obstacle to wider adoption of AM and acceptance of AM-manufactured products – and it’s not the materials or techniques themselves. Instead, as many manufacturers will be all too familiar with, it’s certifying their safety. This is an essential step in qualifying materials, such as metal powders, for AM, and AM-manufactured components for the market. Standards remain strict – and often, fail to fully consider AM processes.

What’s more, AM value chains can be complex. Component manufacture is often sub-contracted to AM specialists, some of whom may be supplying to multiple industries with varying qualification requirements. Often, parties are unsure who is responsible for what. For instance, did you know that additive manufacturers typically have the same legal responsibilities as conventional materials producers? To overcome this hurdle, everyone in the value chain – materials suppliers, materials testers, and manufacturers – needs to understand and meet their relevant requirements.

Meeting and setting standards with materials analysis

Materials characterization is a key component of the certification process and contributes significantly to meeting these standards – or setting new standards that address the current ‘gaps’. How? By providing insights into the particle size, shape, and elemental composition of AM powders, materials analysis enables manufacturers, and suppliers, to ensure feedstock quality, safety, and performance. These insights can be used as evidence either for compliance with existing regulations and standards or in support of new standards.

And Malvern Panalytical’s instruments can provide these insights with several of our techniques being cited in ISO/ASTM 52907: Additive manufacturing — Feedstock materials — Methods to characterize metal powders! Our Mastersizer 3000 delivers world-class laser diffraction for particle size analysis, while Insitec provides similar measurements in real-time. When it comes to elemental composition, our Epsilon and Zetium XRF spectrometers offer powerful, rapid, accurate analysis. Our automated Morphologi 4 static image analysis system gives you a detailed description of your particles’ morphological properties. And our Hydro Insight accessory for the Mastersizer 3000 provides both particle images and quantitative particle shape data.

Dive deeper into our upcoming webinar

Even better, we’re also holding a webinar on March 8 to further explore the issues around AM certification! ‘Mind the gaps – safe steps to qualifying Additive Manufacturing processes and products will be led by David Hardacre, Lead Specialist in Inspection Services at Lloyd’s Register, and will cover:

• Typical processes for certifying materials and components
• Pre-requisites for certification within the supply chain, such as powder characterization
• The development of AM standards – and how to use them to support qualification and certification
• The typical approach and documentation requirements for an AM project

So, if you’re involved in supplying AM materials, testing those materials, or producing parts using AM, why not join us? By identifying the gaps in AM qualification requirements and working to address them, we can promote greater acceptance of AM-manufactured products across a wide range of industries. To 3D-printed neighborhoods and beyond!

Further reading

• A look back at this year’s best additive manufacturing blogs
• The use of XRD for Additive Manufacturing of metals
• Could additive manufacturing be the future for sustainability?
• Characterizing metal powders for Additive Manufacturing
• Characterizing material properties for powder additive manufacturing

Stay tuned for more content next year by following our Advanced Materials specialists on LinkedIn.

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