UK Powder Metallurgy and Additive Manufacturing Seminar
Malvern Panalytical had the pleasure of hosting a free seminar devoted to Understanding Material Characterisation for Powder Metallurgy and Additive Manufacturing.
The seminar, attended by over 25 people, was held at TWI’s Granta Centre in Cambridge on the 16th of October. The Granta Centre is an impressive building with a long-standing history in powder metallurgy innovation – a great place to inspire future innovation!
The morning was comprised of a series of presentations outlining various particle characterization methods.
The following topics were presented:
- The importance of powder characterization in laser-based additive manufacturing
by Miguel Zavala – Project Leader at TWI Ltd - How to optimize your Powder Injection Moulding process using rheological testing
by Adrian Hill – Technical Support Supervisor for Rheology at Malvern Panalytical - Measuring and optimizing metal powder size and shape for net-shape manufacturing
by Cathryn Langley – Product Manager for Laser Diffraction at Malvern Panalytical - The PowderCleanse System
by Ben Blackham – Advanced Research Engineer in Materials Engineering at the MTC - Using X-rays to see inside your powdered metal materials and processes
by Nicholas Norberg – Application Specialist for X-Ray Diffraction at Malvern Panalytical - Strain-controlled fatigue testing of additive manufactured titanium Ti-6Al-4V by electron beam PBF
by Rob Plaskitt – Mechanical Engineering Specialist from HBM Prenscia
After the first four presentations, we paused for a well-deserved coffee/tea break in a separate break-out room. We then kicked-off the final morning session with Nicholas Norberg, who provided a comprehensive and thought-provoking overview of X-ray diffraction (XRD). Finally, Rob Plaskitt from HBM Prenscia presented his research on fatigue testing of additive manufactured titanium parts. Malvern Panalytical were pleased to have HBM involved in proceedings as we are both sister companies belonging to the Spectris Group.
The presentations stimulated many interesting questions and follow-up discussions which continued into the buffet-style lunch-break. After lunch, the attendees were then split into small groups for the various system demonstrations:
- Mastersizer 3000 (particle size)
- Morphologi 4 (particle size and shape)
- Epsilon 4 (elemental analysis) interactive demonstration from XRD instrument in Almelo, Holland
- nCode DesignLife (fatigue life simulation)
Overall, the end of the seminar was really only the beginning – sparking many further questions and possible collaborations.
A big thank you to all attendees and presenters and we look forward to hosting similar events in the future!