Selective laser melting of components with thick section through in-situ shelling

In this study selective laser melting (SLM) has been used to produce Ti64 components with thick section. To speed up the processing of the thick section only the surface shell of the component has been melted, with the remaining volume filled by the process with loose powder before sealing. The component is then consolidated to full density via hot isostatic pressing (HIPing). To aid the production of samples with complex geometry the component design has been modified to have a powder reservoir. This part of the design is built with a concertina “crumple zone” of thinner section. The concertina, thin-walled section provides uniaxial deformation in the early stage of HIP processing before full densification later in the processing cycle, avoiding distortion of the base part. The reservoir is removed after processing producing a fully dense, net-shape component.