Additive production device and associated additive production method
AssigneeEOS GmbH Electro Optical Systems
InventorsStefan Paternoster, Albert Fruth
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An additive manufacturing apparatus for additive manufacturing includes a layer application device for applying a building material layer by layer, an energy input unit including a carbon monoxide laser and a radiation supply unit for supplying laser radiation of the carbon monoxide laser, and a laser power modification device adapted to effect an increase of the power per unit area incident on the building material within a time period that is smaller than 300 μs and/or larger than 50 ns, when the laser power is increased and/or to effect a reduction of the power per unit area incident on the building material within a time period that is smaller than 100 μm and/or larger than 100 ns, when the laser power is decreased.
Claims7
An additive manufacturing method for manufacturing a three-dimensional object, comprising:
- providing a layer application device for applying a powder building material layer by layer;
- providing an energy input unit comprising:
- a carbon monoxide laser;
- and
- a radiation supply unit adapted to direct a laser beam onto a layer of the building material for supplying laser radiation of the carbon monoxide laser to positions in each layer that are assigned to a cross-section of the object in the layer in order to sinter or melt the building material at the positions;
- providing a laser power modification device adapted to deflect the laser beam to an on and off condition, wherein the laser power modification device is an acousto-optic or electro-optic modulator;
- operating the laser power modification device using a zeroth order laser radiation penetrating the laser power modification device for a power rise time within a time period that is smaller than 300 μs and/or larger than 50 ns, and/or to effect a reduction in a power drop time of the laser within a time period that is smaller than 100 μs and/or larger than 100 ns;
- the radiation supply unit further comprising a deflection unit adapted to direct zeroth order laser radiation of the carbon monoxide laser passing through an aperture with a size of the aperture being wide enough to accommodate a diameter of the zeroth order beam, and thence through focusing optic elements to generate a focus diameter equal to or smaller than 500 μm on a surface of a building material layer;
- and;
- all yielding a fine definition resolution solidification in layer formation.
An additive manufacturing method for powder bed fusion where an object is built in layer wise fashion using a laser power system that supplies a laser beam to positions in each layer on a building surface that are assigned to a cross-section of the object in the layer in order to solidify a building material, comprising:
- providing a carbon monoxide laser;
- providing a laser beam power modification device moving a zero order beam of the laser to selectively pass the laser beam through the power modification device to switch the laser beam from a focal point on the building surface thereby reducing beam incident power to about zero in a power fall off span ranging between about 100 μs to about 100 ns, or increasing beam rise power to a desired maximum in about 300 μs to about 50 ns,
- expanding the zero order beam passing from the laser power modification device and then through an aperture sized to accommodate the expanded zero order beam before then being directed through focusing optical elements, to yield a spot area of incidence on the building surface with a beam diameter of about 80 μm to about 300 μm;
- providing a focus of the laser beam that can be moved across the surface of the building material in hatch lines that are parallel to each other with a distance to one another that is smaller than 0.18 mm and/or in which a beam offset can be set that is smaller than 0.18 mm;
- and
- producing a fine definition resolution in building layers each having a layer thickness of less than about 80 μm to about 10 μm.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.