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Thursday, June 9, 2005 - 9:30 AM
MPSA053.3

Electron Beam Free Forming of AlBe Alloys

C. Pokross, Brush Wellman, Elmore, OH; M. Larsson, ARCAM, Molndal, Sweden

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Summary:

This paper will present the results of a “direct manufacturing” development program of Aluminum-Beryllium alloys using Electron Beam Free Form technology. Arcam, a Swedish technology company has developed a Electron Beam Free Form Fabrication (EBF3) process, which makes it possible to produce solid metal details directly from metal powders.

This technology is well established for Ti6Al4V and other Ti alloys and H13 Tool Steels. The fundamental idea in this CAD to Metal process is to build fully dense metal details in layers of powder, each which is melted by and electron beam to a precise geometry as defined by a computer model.

The results of this development program demonstrated that it is possible to manufacture fully dense AlBe (62%Be 38% Al) metal starting with powder. The tensile data, microstructure analysis, hardness and density data will be presented.