Hal J. Galvin, vice president of business development at MTS Systems and chairman of AeroMet Corp., an MTS subsidiary, said that titanium components produced by AeroMet's Lasform process, which is similar to Penn State's, are demonstrating mechanical properties at least equal to those found in titanium forgings, if not superior. Using the Lasform process, he noted, it is possible to tailor alloy chemistry and to engineer desirable grain structure. As the structure is built up in the Los Alamos directed light fabrication process, the part is moved in the x and y axes, while the laser head moves in the z direction and can tilt. There is also a rotary axis on which the part can move. A fiber optically delivered Nd-YAG laser is used in this process.
Work is carried out within an inert atmosphere.
The use of the objects would be limited by the metallurgy of the materials, he added. Los Alamos is trying to commercialize the pro-cess, Lewis said. According to the report by Whitney and Sears, a 1.5-kW CO 2 laser has been used in this process to deposit stainless steel up to 9 cubic millimeters a second. Travel speeds between 500 and 1,000 mm per minute have been used to obtain fully dense, porosity-free deposits. DTM Corp. The center is operating with two selective laser sintering machines from DTM and a higher-powered unit from Optomec Design for the LENS process.