1. Laser melting on powder bed

The aim of this section is to give a brief introduction to the main process used to produce mold cavities in additive manufacturing: laser melting on a powder bed. The focus here is on the use of maraging steel, the most commonly used steel for mold cavities.

The laser powder bed fusion process [BM 7 900] is known by several names (figure 1 ), but will be abbreviated here to LPBF (Laser Powder Bed Fusion), which is still one of the most widely...