How a stainless steel 3D printer saves time and reduces cost for component manufacturers

Stainless steel parts have traditionally been produced using laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF). However, the challenge is that L-PBF (also called selective laser melting, or SLM) ends up being an expensive solution for making stainless steel parts.

Using a laser as an energy source to melt powder particles has been developed over decades and yields good results. However, it is a very slow technology with a low variety in materials—especially for carbon-containing mixes.

A new technology that has come on the market is metal binder jetting, which allows GKN Additive to be able to make stainless steel parts at a lower cost point at a higher volume than L-PBF printing. Where L-PBF prints pixel by pixel, metal binder jetting prints an entire layer at a time, significantly speeding up the process.