An additive manufacturing apparatus including a build chamber containing a support for supporting a material bed, a layering device for forming layers of the material bed, a laser or electron beam source for generating a laser or electron beam, a device for steering the laser or electron beam to solidify selected areas of each layer to form a part and a microwave or radio wave source controllable to generate a microwave or radio wave field to differentially heat the material bed based upon the selected areas.

A shaping apparatus is equipped with: a beam shaping system having a beam irradiation section that includes a condensing optical system which emits a beam and a material processing section which supplies a shaping material irradiated by the beam from the beam irradiation section; and a controller which, on the basis of 3D data of a three-dimensional shaped object to be formed on a target surface, controls a workpiece movement system and the beam shaping system such that a target portion on the target surface is shaped by supplying the shaping material from the material processing section while moving the beam from the beam irradiation section and the target surface on a workpiece (or a table) relative to each other. Further the intensity distribution of the beam in the shaping plane facing the emitting surface of the condensing optical system can be modified.

In order to have ensure a proper dosing of a 3D printing system, it is disclosed a feeding mechanism for feeding build material to a surface that comprises: a receptacle to receive build material; and an outlet of the build material having a substantially quadrilateral opening with a first dimension and a second dimension orthogonal to one another; the outlet further comprising a third dimension orthogonal to the first dimension and the second dimension defining the height of the outlet, and the feeding mechanism being to selectively feed build material from the receptacle through the outlet onto a surface as the feeding mechanism moves along a travel direction over the surface, being such travel direction parallel to the first dimension of the outlet, the feeding mechanism further comprising an actuator to modify the magnitude of at least one of the second dimension or the third dimension outlet.

A manufacturing apparatus additively shapes an article by sintering or melting and then solidifying a metal powder through irradiation of a shaping optical beam. The manufacturing apparatus includes: a chamber; a metal powder feeding device that feeds the metal powder to an irradiation area; a shaping optical beam irradiation device that applies the shaping optical beam to the metal powder in the irradiation area; an absorptance enhancement assisting unit that performs a predetermined absorptance enhancement assisting treatment on the metal powder; and a shaping unit that, following implementation of the absorptance enhancement assisting treatment, performs a shaping treatment of additively shaping the article by applying the shaping optical beam and thus heating the metal powder to sinter or melt and then solidify.

An additive manufacturing device includes a container bed configured to contain material powder; a printing bed over which material is deposited and heat applied; one or more heating elements configured to hold material on the printing bed and material on the container bed at temperatures higher than ambient; one or more actuators; and a two-dimensional array of heat deposition devices configured for a 2D space filling movement by the one or more actuators in a plane generally perpendicular to an optical axis of the heat deposition devices.

An additive manufacturing device includes a container bed configured to contain material powder; a printing bed over which material is deposited and heat applied; one or more heating elements configured to hold material on the printing bed and material on the container bed at temperatures higher than ambient; one or more actuators; and a two-dimensional array of heat deposition devices configured for a 2D space filling movement by the one or more actuators in a plane generally perpendicular to an optical axis of the heat deposition devices.

An apparatus and a method are provided for manufacturing three-dimensional objects by selective solidification of a build material applied in layers. A heating element having at least two functional openings is used to improve the manufacturing process and in particular to optimize heat input. One of the at least two functional openings serves as a material passthrough and another of the at least two functional openings simultaneously serves as a radiation passthrough. An additional heating and/or cooling device serves to control the temperature of build material applied through the material passthrough.

The present invention belongs to the field of multi-material additive manufacturing (AM), and in particular discloses a forming system and method of hybrid AM and surface coating. The hybrid forming system includes an additive forming device, a laser-assisted cold spraying (LACS) device and a workbench. The additive forming device and the LACS device are located above the workbench. During manufacturing, the additive forming device forms a part to be formed on the workbench layer by layer, and the LACS device performs coating peening treatment on inner and outer surfaces of the part to be formed during the forming process, thereby jointly completing the composite manufacturing of the part to be formed. The present invention makes full use of the rapid prototyping advantage of the short-flow AM process, and integrates the surface coating peening process into the hybrid forming system.

The present invention belongs to the field of multi-material additive manufacturing (AM), and in particular discloses a forming system and method of hybrid AM and surface coating. The hybrid forming system includes an additive forming device, a laser-assisted cold spraying (LACS) device and a workbench. The additive forming device and the LACS device are located above the workbench. During manufacturing, the additive forming device forms a part to be formed on the workbench layer by layer, and the LACS device performs coating peening treatment on inner and outer surfaces of the part to be formed during the forming process, thereby jointly completing the composite manufacturing of the part to be formed. The present invention makes full use of the rapid prototyping advantage of the short-flow AM process, and integrates the surface coating peening process into the hybrid forming system.

The invention relates to a spin coater for a device for the additive manufacture of an object, having a support that can be connected to the device in a rotable manner about a rotational axis; and a coating element that is coupled to the support and that is suitable for applying or leveling a powder layer on a plane in the device while the support is rotating, the plane running perpendicularly to the rotational axis. The coating element substantially maintains its orientation during the rotational movement of the support within a specified rotational range. The coating element does not substantially move in a longitudinal direction of the coating element during the rotational movement of the support within a specified rotational range.