Upgraded titanium laser sintering from EOS

The high strength, low weight and outstanding corrosion resistance of titanium and its alloys are well known, and so too, are the difficulties of machining and welding them. EOS, manufacturer of laser-sintering systems, has solved the problem with a new version of its M 270, capable of rapidly producing highly accurate and complex titanium components. Pure titanium can be processed as well as Ti64 alloy (6 per cent aluminium / 4 per cent vanadium). The latest version of the EOSINT M 270 can have either nitrogen in the build chamber (Installation Mode Standard) or argon (Installation Mode Xtended). The latter gas is ideal for laser-sintering titanium and a filtering system has been incorporated to remove the process condensate during the building process. Users of older M 270s can have their machine upgraded by EOS to the new specification. Quantifying the upgrade: surface finish is now two to three times better, typically 4 to 5 Ra instead of 10 to 12 Ra. Scanning speed is three to four times faster, up from 350 to around 1,200 mm/s, resulting in much faster build speeds. Perhaps most importantly, components produced are homogeneous and fully dense throughout, regardless of the length of the build cycle.