Generation and shape control of linelinked preforms by laser melting

Abstract

Mechanical upsetting is a wide-spread manufacturing process in the macro range used to increase the diameter of a work piece. However, this process does not transfer well to the micro range because maximum upset ratios decrease to values below 2. A laser-based process has previously been used to take advantage of size effects in micro range and generate preforms which can be cold formed to a final shape within a single step. A variation of this process is presented in this paper where many preforms are generated on one long rod of diameter 0.2 mm to 0.5 mm in order to alleviate handling problems associated with micro parts and simplify the manufacturing process chain. An extension of the production method is investigated which also allows control over the shape of the produced preforms.