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 Arcam AB’s Electron Beam Melting (EBM) technology holds long-term promise of directly producing metal and ceramic parts in a wide range of materials. The process is similar to selective laser sintering in that it fuses layers of powder together to form a three dimensional part, but replaces the laser with an electron beam. According to the Swedish company, this results in much higher energy efficiency and a cleaner environment that leads to better material properties than competing methods. The company has qualified two materials so far, including H13 tool steel, and says the properties of fabricated parts are identical to those made with intrinsic material. Parts fabricated in the EBM process can be subject to full design loads and temperatures and can be machined to the tolerances and surface finish specifications of the final parts.
Arcam is in the early commercialization stages and is aiming at markets for producing functional prototypes, and short production runs of metal parts, as well as injection and die casting molds. Conformal cooling channels can easily be incorporated into molds, but as with SLS, unused support powder could be difficult to remove from some geometries. 
and shown mounted for real-world testing on the right. The build chamber is evacuated and held at about 1000 deg C during the fabrication cycle. Arcam says that the elevated temperature keeps the part geometry stable, preventing warping and curling. In addition, the controlled cool down used in the process results in an effective heat treat for the material.
 
The layout of the Arcam Electron Beam Melting system is shown on the right. All photos courtesy Arcam AB. The company says that one of the main advantages of the system compared to laser-based systems is its low cost of operation. Lasers are inefficient and only convert a small amount of the input power into a usable radiation. Electron beam conversion efficiency is very high and nearly all the input power is available to do useful work. Electron beams have higher absorption efficiency, as well. Certain metals are apt to reflect lasers rather than absorb them, also leading to poorer efficiency for laser-based methods. For more info contact:
Arcam AB
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