Investigation of the selective laser melting process with molybdenum powder

Selective laser melting (SLM) is an additive manufacturing technology which allows parts to be fabricated from metal powder using CAD data. Today, standard metal powders like stainless steel, titanium, aluminium or copper are widely used with SLM technology. However, none of these materials is suitable for high-temperature applications up to more than 2000 °C such as the diagnostic and inner wall materials of a fusion reactor or experiment. As a primary task at the Central Institute of Engineering, Electronics and Analytics, development and manufacturing of high-temperature components for experimental setups are essentially demanded using new technologies and materials. Therefore, molybdenum powder is investigated in terms of suitability for SLM technology in this study, due to the capability of molybdenum withstanding high temperature. Parameters like laser power, spot velocity and thickness of the powder layer are analysed to achieve high density of the parts.