Abstract:
Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is one of the most important technologies in the field of metal additive manufacturing, which is widely applied in aerospace, biomedicine, industrial molds and other fields. Currently, LPBF is developing towards large size, high efficiency, high precision and high performance. However, LPBF still encounters some bottlenecks, such as internal defects, residual stresses, and the control of the thermal history. In order to enhance the manufacturing capabilities of metal parts manufacturing via LPBF, innovative equipment and processes were constantly emerging. The current advanced equipment and processes of LPBF are analyzed, including beam shaping technology, multi-beam partitioned splicing, same format multi-beam composite, regional 3D printing technology, multi-material printing and online monitoring assistance technology, as well as unsupported printing process, inter-layer modification process, multi-field assisted forming process and machine learning-assisted performance prediction process. The technical advantages and disadvantages of LPBF equipment and processes were summarized, and the future development direction of LPBF was predicted.