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The AM laboratory at Ångström

Equipment

At the Ångström laboratory there are substantial infrastructure for research in additive manufacturing. 3D-printers for all kinds of materials (polymers, ceramics, and metals) are used in different research projects. Some of the equipment is common, available to all research groups at the Faculty, being maintained and handled by the AM@Å initiative; other equipment belongs to individual research groups.

Presently the equipment is spread out at different labs, but during 2022 a new common AM-lab will be organised in freshly renovated facilities in house 6 of the Ångström laboratory. This lab will house both common equipment maintained by AM@Å, but also co-locate other equipment from different research group. This will create a joint laboratory with suitable and shared infrastructure, but also a creative and synergetic research environment for additive manufacturing.

AM@Å initiative's equipment

Individual research group's equipment

Pricing

The common AM infrastructure maintained by the AM@Å initiative is available to all research groups at the Faculty of science and technology at Uppsala university. The running cost of the equipment is covered by user fees, with different hourly cost for different instruments. New users will receive training on the instruments from our research engineer, but for smaller projects it will also be possible to engage the research engineer at an hourly basis to do work for a specific project.
If the instrument schedules allow, the lab will also take on external projects.

Price list for printing

For more information see below or contact Research Engineer, Jithin Marattukalam James who is in charge of the AM lab.

Carl Johan Karlsson Hassila (Materials science and engineering)

ACONITY MIDI PBF-LB SYSTEM

The Aconity MIDI is the most recent procurement at the Ångström AM-lab. Unlike the EOS M100 which is an industrial machine, the Aconity MIDI had been developed with research purposes in mind. This means that some aspects of the PBF-LB process which in the EOS M100 is controlled automatically by background software, is available to the user in the Aconity MIDI. This of course, makes the use of the Aconity MIDI more complex but on the other hand offers the possibility to study the influence of additional parameters. The Aconity MIDI is equipped with 500 W laser and a 3D scanner which allow on the fly alterations of the laser focus. Furthermore, the system is equipped with a heater, allowing the build plate to be heated to 800 degrees C. A dual wavelength pyrometer allow for process monitoring of the melt pool temperature and the vacuum option allow for studies focused on deep welding effects. Lastly, the larger build volume in the Aconity allow for printing of lager components, for example the AM-lab can now print creep specimens according to standard which was not possible in the in the EOS M100 given its smaller build volume.

  • Build volume: 170 mm dia. x 200 mm
  • Laser Power: 500 W
  • Heating: 800 C
  • 3D Laser scanner
  • Pyrometer monitoring
  • Vacuum option
ACONITY MIDI PBF-LB SYSTEM
EOS M100 PBF-LB SYSTEM

EOS M100 PBF-LB SYSTEM

The EOS M100 is a small, industrial type laser powder bed fusion system initially developed for medical and dental applications. The system is equipped with a 200 W Yb-fiber laser which have a focus spot around 45 µm in diameter. This small focus spot results in a comparatively high resolution in the printing process, allowing small, detailed components to be printed. The system is easy to use and ideal for users with limited experience of PBF-LB systems. Hence, it is an important piece of equipment also for educational purposes. Given the small size of the system, it is ideal for feasibility studies on new alloys as only a small amount of powder is required to run the process. With a circular build area of 100 mm in diameter and 80 mm total build height, the resulting build volume, although small, is sufficient to print tensile and impact specimens according to common standards. At the Ångström laboratory, the system has successfully printed many different alloys including Ni-, Cu-, Fe-, Zr- and Mg-based alloys. The system has been modified in-house to allow in-situ measurements of temperatures as well as heating of the build platform up to 350 degrees C.

  • Build volume: 100 mm dia. x 80 mm
  • Laser Power: 200 W
  • Heating: 350 C

AM equipment at Ångström not managed by AM@Å

Besides the above listed 3D printers managed by the AM@Å initiative, there are also a number of 3D-printers and associated equipment belonging to individual research groups, as well as by µFAB Uppsala as a part of their microstructure laboratory.

Nanotechnology and Functional Materials

  • 3x polymer selective laser sintering printers
  • 2x custom built polymer binderjet printers
  • 3x fused deposition moulding polymer printers
  • Dr. Jonas Lindh

Biomedical Engineering

Materials in medicine

  • Formlab FORM 2, stereolitographic printer for ceramic materials
  • Flashforge Hunter, digital light processing printer
  • Dr. Wei Xia

Microsystems Technology

µFAB Uppsala

The common lab for additive manufacturing at the Ångström laboratory has a number of 3D-printers, and is able to take on small and large projects with internal (UU) or external academic or non-academic partners. For larger projects the partners personel can be trained on our equipment. For smaller projects, the practical work can be performed by our research engineer whose time will be charged. The following costs apply:

Metal 3D-printing

  • EOS 1M00 LPBF system - internal (UU) projects 450 kr/h, external projects 800 kr/h
  • Aconity Midi LPBF system - internal (UU) projects 600 kr/h, external projects 1 200 kr/h

Research engineer

  • Internal (UU) projects 500 kr/h, external projects 1300 kr/h

Material

  • Full (self) cost of powder used for project

External projects are accepted based on availability of resources. All prices are exluding VAT.

Contact

Characterisation and post-processing of printed materials

For characterisation, and further processing of printed materials our researchers use common resources available at the Ångström laboratory:

Acknowledgements

If the laboratory facilities of AM@Å have been used in your research, we require that this in acknowledged in publications:

We gratefully acknowledge the Additive Manufacturing Initiative at the Ångström Laboratory (AM@Å) for providing facilities and experimental support.

For presentations and posters the following logo can be used:

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