Development of Magnesium Laser Powder Bed Fusion to Manufacture Light-weight Components for Vertical Lift Applications

This paper describes the work that was conducted to demonstrate the capability to produce high quality representative magnesium products for vertical lift applications by Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF). An important step in the development was the selection of a metal powder with adequate spreadability for LPBF. Optimum process parameters are required for the production of parts featuring low porosity and low roughness. An efficient optimization approach was applied that enabled the selection of process parameters by analysis of an array of thin wall and block samples from one single build job. After the process parameter selection, benchmark parts were produced for evaluating design rules to print magnesium parts. Demonstrator parts were successfully produced based on a representative light-weight component for Vertical Lift application. A very fine homogeneous microstructure was found at the melt-pool and grain scale. After the removal of the parts from the baseplate, some deformation occurred due to residual stresses.