A process chamber housing for an additive manufacturing apparatus with a process chamber (having a bottom, a ceiling, and side walls that jointly enclose a volume of the process chamber), an inert gas inlet in a front wall of the side walls (to provide an inert gas into the process chamber) and an inert gas outlet in a rear wall of the side walls (to release the inert gas out of the process chamber). When the inert gas inlet and the inert gas outlet are positioned at opposite sides of the opening of the housing and face towards each other to establish an inert gas flow in a main flow direction from the inert gas inlet over the opening to the inert gas outlet, the quality of laser beam(s) employed in the additive manufacturing process is improved.

A powder cleaning system can include a fluidized bed reactor configured to retain powder and fluidize the powder to remove adsorbate and/or other contaminants from the powder, and one or more gas sources configured to be in selective fluid communication with the fluidized bed reactor via at least one inlet line to selectively provide an inlet flow having one or more gases to the fluidized bed reactor to fluidize the powder with the one or more gases within the fluidized bed reactor. The system can include at least one outlet line in fluid communication with the fluidized bed reactor and configured to allow removal of outlet flow which comprises the adsorbate and/or other contaminants from the fluidized bed reactor.

A lamination molding apparatus, including a numerical control apparatus configured to form a desired lamination molding object by a repetition in accordance with a main program pre-created and numbered with a sequence number, the main program including a plurality of program lines, wherein the repetition includes forming a material powder layer of a predetermined thickness on a molding table for each divided layer, the molding table being vertically movable, the divided layer being obtained by dividing a shape of the desired lamination molding object at the predetermined thickness; and irradiating a predetermined area of the material powder layer with a laser beam to form a sintered layer.

A lamination molding apparatus, including a numerical control apparatus configured to form a desired lamination molding object by a repetition in accordance with a main program pre-created and numbered with a sequence number, the main program including a plurality of program lines, wherein the repetition includes forming a material powder layer of a predetermined thickness on a molding table for each divided layer, the molding table being vertically movable, the divided layer being obtained by dividing a shape of the desired lamination molding object at the predetermined thickness; and irradiating a predetermined area of the material powder layer with a laser beam to form a sintered layer.

The invention relates to a method for coding metal powder. Said method comprises the following steps: providing a melt, forming a melt stream, spraying the melt stream by means of a spraying fluid, and forming metal powder particles from the melt stream. The method is characterized in that, during the spraying of the melt and/or the spraying fluid, a coding component or a coding gas is added in such a way that the use of the coding component in the metal powder can be detected, wherein the gaseous coding component comprises one or more isotopes of at least one gas and the fraction of the at least one isotope is changed in comparison with the naturally occurring fraction of said isotope in the gas and/or wherein the gaseous coding component contains gaseous alloying elements.

A method of additive manufacture is disclosed. The method can include providing an enclosure surrounding a powder bed and having an atmosphere including helium gas. A high flux laser beam is directed at a defined two dimensional region of the powder bed. Powder is melted and fused within the defined two dimensional region, with less than 50% by weight of the powder particles being displaced into any defined two dimensional region that shares an edge or corner with the defined two dimensional region where powder melting and fusing occurs.

A method of additive manufacture is disclosed. The method can include providing an enclosure surrounding a powder bed and having an atmosphere including helium gas. A high flux laser beam is directed at a defined two dimensional region of the powder bed. Powder is melted and fused within the defined two dimensional region, with less than 50% by weight of the powder particles being displaced into any defined two dimensional region that shares an edge or corner with the defined two dimensional region where powder melting and fusing occurs.

Provided are a rare-earth permanent magnet whose magnet density after sintering is very high and a method for manufacturing a rare-earth permanent magnet. Thus, a magnet raw material is milled into magnet powder, and then, a compound 12 is formed by mixing the magnet powder thus milled with a binder. Next, the compound 12 thus formed is subjected to a hot-melt molding onto a supporting substrate 13 so as to form a green sheet 14 molded to a sheet-like shape. Thereafter, while the green sheet 14 thus molded is softened by heating, magnetic field orientation is carried out by applying a magnetic field to the green sheet 14 thus heated; and further, the green sheet 14 having been subjected to the magnetic field orientation is calcined by a vacuum sintering, which is further followed by a pressure sintering to produce a permanent magnet 1.

Provided are a rare-earth permanent magnet whose magnet density after sintering is very high and a method for manufacturing a rare-earth permanent magnet. Thus, a magnet raw material is milled into magnet powder, and then, a compound 12 is formed by mixing the magnet powder thus milled with a binder. Next, the compound 12 thus formed is subjected to a hot-melt molding onto a supporting substrate 13 so as to form a green sheet 14 molded to a sheet-like shape. Thereafter, while the green sheet 14 thus molded is softened by heating, magnetic field orientation is carried out by applying a magnetic field to the green sheet 14 thus heated; and further, the green sheet 14 having been subjected to the magnetic field orientation is calcined by a vacuum sintering, which is further followed by a pressure sintering to produce a permanent magnet 1.

Methods of making sintered articles from powder metal carbide compositions by additive manufacturing techniques are described herein. Sintered carbide articles fabricated by such additive manufacturing techniques, in some embodiments, exhibit densities equaling articles formed according to conventional techniques employed in powder metallurgy. For example, a method of manufacturing an article comprises providing sintered cemented carbide powder comprising a hard particle phase including tungsten carbide and a metallic binder phase and forming the sintered cemented carbide powder into a green article by one or more additive manufacturing techniques. The green article is sintered to provide a sintered article having density greater than 90% theoretical full density, wherein the green article has a density less than 50% theoretical full density prior to sintering.