Manufacturing supports
Selective laser melting of metallic powder bed

During manufacturing, the temperature of the chamber is very far from the melting point of the powder, unlike laser sintering on a bed of polymer powders, so material shrinkage is significant. Therefore, if the first layers of a part manufactured by laser are not securely clamped to the manufacturing plate by supports, they will warp. Furthermore, if there are not enough supports or if they are not sturdy enough, the manufacturing process can "crash." The layering system can then become blocked by a part of the part being built that lifts up (figure 9 ). In this case, manufacturing must be restarted from the beginning, taking care to provide more sturdy or more numerous supports. Figure