Enhancement in fine powder availability for Powder Bed Fusion applying high gravity

In recent years, additive manufacturing (AM) technology that can directly shape objects from three-dimensional data has attractedattention.AM technology is promising as a manufacturing method in space because of its resource and space-saving properties. Some studies have shown that gravity change is viewed as a problem to overcome. On the other hand, there has been no progress in the discussion of attempts to effectively utilize gravity changes for AM technology. In this study, we focus on powder bed fusion (PBF) among AM technologies, using gravity as a control factor. The high gravity PBF (HG-PBF) is expected to be able to solve the problems of the current AM technology such as improvement of shape accuracy and process stability. In this study, we used fine powders and experimentally discuss the effect of the high gravity field on improvement of PBF process.