Cross-contamination quantification in powders for additive manufacturing: A study on Ti-6Al-4V and maraging steel

Metal additive manufacturing is now taking the lead over traditional manufacturing techniques in applications such as aerospace and biomedicine, which are characterized by low production volumes and high levels of customization. While fulfilling these requirements is the strength of metal additive manufacturing, respecting the tight tolerances typical of the mentioned applications is a harder task to accomplish. Powder bed fusion (PBF) is a class of additive manufacturing in which layers of metal powder are fused on top of each other by a high-energy beam (laser or electron beam) according to a computer-aided design (CAD) model. The quality of raw powders for PBF affects the mechanical properties of additively manufactured parts strongly, and therefore it is crucial to avoid the presence of any source of contamination, particularly cross-contamination. In this study, the identification and quantification of cross-contamination in powders of Ti-6Al-4V and maraging steel was performed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) techniques. Experimental results showed an overall good reliability of the developed method, opening the way for applications in machine learning environments.