7000 Series Aluminum is commonly required for aviation parts such as landing gear components
Optomec Inc. has added 7000 Series Aluminum to its growing list of qualified alloys for use in its LENS 3D DED metal printers.
"Manufacturers in many industrial and aerospace segments demand 7000 series aluminum for 3D metal additive manufacturing (AM) because it possesses the highest strength of all the aluminum series alloys and is commonly used in high-stress parts such as aircraft landing gear components," said a company spokesperson.
This alloy capability is enabled by Optomec's latest laser optics solution-now standard in all of its LENS 3D metal printers-that allows the size and profile of the laser-heated region to be remotely adjusted for a particular alloy.
Different metals and alloys require different sets of process parameters, referred to as "process recipes." Depending on the alloy, it can take months of experimentation to optimize a recipe for a new alloy, including powder screening, process development and tuning, samples production, mechanical testing, metallurgical analysis, etc. To save its customers time and development cost, Optomec offers qualified Process Recipes for a wide range of common alloys, including basic steels; titanium; Inconel and other superalloys; corrosion-resistant alloys; wear coatings; thermal barrier coatings; thermal-conduction alloys such as copper; and now aluminum alloys, including 7000 series.
Recipes are available for a range of print scenarios, including thin-walled, high-resolution and bulk deposit versions as starter recipes, or it can develop part-specific production recipes for specific end-user geometries upon request. Further, Optomec is developing Print Libraries that include print geometry for specific common LENS applications, such as turbine blade repair.
"We can develop new material recipes much faster now," said Lucas Brewer, head of Optomec's Applications Engineering Group in Albuquerque. "Our new deposition head technology is really the key to getting the DED process to print these new alloys in a repeatable way for our production customers. It has opened up new applications for metal AM."
For more information contact:
Optomec
3911 Singer NE
Albuquerque, NM 87109
505-761-8250
sales@optomec.com
www.optomec.com