Additive manufacturing using selective electron beam melting

Additive manufacturing encompasses all the procedures which build up a component layer by layer on the basis of a three-dimensional computer model. Additive building-up permits complex geometrical shapes which are subject to hardly any restrictions and thus could not be implemented with conventional manufacturing procedures or only at great expense. Similar to selective laser beam melting, selective electron beam melting (SEBM) is a powder-bed-based additive manu - facturing process in which the powder particles are locally melted completely and consolidated by the beam. The electron beam permits the processing of high-melting and reactive metals in a vacuum as well as a high construction rate for additive manufacturing processes due to high power densities and quick deflection speeds. This article not only describes the installation setup and the process sequence during SEBM but also introduces the material classes investigated until now, selected applications and the numerical simulation of this procedure.