Abstract:
To address the challenges of large-scale part formation and the thermal field stability in the process of electron beam powder bed fusion (EB-PBF) technology, a multi-beam integrated EB-PBF forming strategy is proposed. Key issues such as thermal structure deformation and inconsistent spot size, which may be caused by the collaborative operation of multiple electron beams, are examined, and technical solutions—such as thermal deformation suppression and automatic electron beam calibration—are proposed. Furthermore, based on the multi-beam EB-PBF technology, a multi-gun array forming strategy and a double-gun same-frame forming strategy are introduced. By using the multi-gun array forming strategy, the EB-PBF forming area is effectively expanded to 600 mm×600 mm. To ensure the consistency of the forming quality in large-area multi-gun EB-PBF, a scan optimization strategy for the overlap region is proposed, and the mechanical property consistency across the full area is verified through TA15 printing experiments. The double-gun same-frame forming strategy is characterized by the development of a method in which multiple energy sources are coupled to regulate the powder bed temperature, whereby temperature stability during selective melting is effectively enhanced. This method can maintain a stable powder preheating temperature of
1250 ℃ during the printing process. Under high preheating temperatures, the double-gun same-frame forming strategy effectively avoids the defect where conventional EB-PBF equipment causes the powder bed preheating temperature to rapidly drop by 200 ℃ to 300 ℃ during the selective melting stage.