Lamination shaping powder evaluation method and lamination shaping powder therefor

Abstract

This invention relates to a method of evaluating powder for lamination shaping by stable criteria. In this method, it is evaluated whether powder for lamination shaping can be spread into a uniform powder layer in the lamination shaping, wherein the powder is evaluated using, as a flowability of the powder, an adhesive force of the powder calculated from a failure envelope obtained by a shear test. The shear test is conducted by a powder rheometer, and the adhesive force is obtained from the relationship between a normal stress and a shearing stress at the powder rheometer. If the adhesive force is 0.450 kPa or less, the powder is evaluated to be spread into a uniform powder layer in the lamination shaping. Furthermore, if at least one of that the 50% particle sin of the powder obtained by a laser diffraction method is 3 to 250 μm and that the apparent density of the powder is 3.5 g/cm3 or more is satisfied, the powder is evaluated to be spread into a uniform powder layer in the lamination shaping.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.