ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | MARCH 2025 1 7 Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is continually innovating its equipment, materials, and software to satisfy evolving customer demands. All of these areas share a need for characterization and testing results to inform future research trajectories and help home in on the most promising solutions. Testing laboratories, sometimes internal to an AM original equipment manufacturer (OEM), provide documentation and testing required to characterize and quantify the in-process quality indicators. Support laboratories enable many areas of AM advancement, BEST PRACTICES FOR METALLOGRAPHY IN A POWDER TESTING LABORATORY This article highlights some of the best metallographic practices from a laser powder bed fusion laboratory and provides practical observations of the more universal aspects of powder testing. Dana M. Drake,* EOS North America, Pflugerville, Texas *Member of ASM International manufacturing or its equipment. A customer may invest in an AM machine to print material from a separate, specific supplier, or their own internal product. In this case, machine parameter optimization alone is necessary to provide a customer solution. Other customer applications may even demand a totally new material, in which case, alloy design and powder specification creation, along with parameter development, is needed. Characterizing powders for these purposes and the final parts created during the process development is a key role for AM-focused metallurgical analogous to metallurgical testing labs that have supported innovation and quality control in manufacturing for decades. The equipment in both conventional labs and AM-focused labs are nearly identical, except for equipment needed for powder feedstock sampling and testing. Many LPBF OEMs provide full solutions for customers that include their LPBF printer, specific powder, and specific machine parameters. However, many applications or R&D engineers in AM are faced with customer demands to use material that was not developed in tandem or specifically for additive Fig. 1 — (a) Metal bin with lever-lock-close lid and sealed bag inside, no desiccant. (b) HDPE orange juice type containers. (c) HDPE barrel containers with desiccant packs removed for sampling. (d) HDPE barrel container, plastic bag with powder inside, and desiccant pack. (e) Metal cannister container, narrow opening. (f) HDPE barrel container with plastic bag and no desiccant pack. (g) Debris from unannounced desiccant packet in powder container. (h) Diagram of a hollow tube powder sampler (thief). (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h)
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