6K Wayland - 1
6K Additive’s UniMelt produced tungsten powder was used to create this intricate lattice structure on Wayland Additive’s NeuBeam-enabled Caliber3 AM platform.
6K Additive’s tungsten powder has been qualified for processing on Wayland Additive’s NeuBeam-powered Calibur3 additive manufacturing system.
The companies believe this will enable users to address new applications in the nuclear, aerospace and hypersonics sectors. Tungsten has been widely applied in aerospace, defence, energy and medical.
A refractory metal, Tungsten has a melting point of 3422°C and is known for ‘exceptional hardness and excellent thermal conductivity.’ 6K Additive’s tungsten grade has been produced using the company’s flagship UniMelt microwave plasma process, which is said to precisely spheroidise metal powders while controlling chemistry and porosity. The company uses rejuvenated scrap for feedstock and is also able to achieve yields of greater than 90% to deliver more sustainable materials to market.
With this qualification, the material can now be used by operators of Wayland’s electron beam powder bed fusion process, which harnesses the NeuBeam electron beam technology to neutralise charge accumulation. This is said to remove the need for pre-sintering of the bed, and allows parts to be easily removed without a hardened sinter cake.
“Wayland Additive has removed the barriers associated with traditional e-beam technologies with our NeuBeam process, allowing a wider range of metals and alloys to be additively processed,” commented Will Richardson, CEO of Wayland Additive. “6K Additive can produce these hard-to-process materials at scale, ready for use in the NeuBeam enabled Calibur3 system. We are particularly excited about the opportunities we are uncovering here in the UK for nuclear applications which require the material properties of tungsten.”
“The UniMelt process can create a virtually infinite range of materials, including hard-to-manufacture metals and alloys,” added 6K Additive President Frank Roberts. “While these materials have excellent properties, they are equally hard to process with traditional AM technologies and often present commercial challenges due to their high cost. Through the combination of our two innovative technologies, 6K Additive and Wayland can produce and process metals that have previously proved elusive. The exceptional properties of refractory metals like tungsten can now be exploited fully through additive manufacturing, opening up exciting new applications in the nuclear, aerospace and defence sectors.”
6K Additive announced earlier this year it had agreed to supply tungsten powder for 3D Systems DMP metal 3D printing systems. Wayland Additive, meanwhile, raised 4.6 million GBP to 'meet the demands of its customer base for electron beam 3D printing.' The company had previously announced it was ramping up production of its flagship machine in February.
