Ames Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been awarded $5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office to improve the production and composition of metal-alloy powders used in additive manufacturing (AM). The project will improve powder production by developing advances in a high-pressure gas-atomization process pioneered at Ames Laboratory and will design and customize alloys specifically for AM processing methods.

Modeling and simulation of gas-atomization process stages at Ames Laboratory will use a flow simulation code developed by National Energy Technology Laboratory for part of the work. The experimental gas-atomization work and alloy design calculations/verification also will be performed in the powder synthesis facilities at Ames Laboratory. Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility will conduct the corresponding AM experiments. 

—The 18th China(Guangzhou)Int’l Heat Treatment, Industrial Furnace Exhibition