Production of spherical powders on the basis of group IV metals for additive manufacturing

Abstract

The method of production of group IV powders for additive manufacturing is presented. Powders are produced in the hydrogenation-dehydrogenation process followed by plasma spheroidization of prepared polygonal powders. The dependence of composition of hydrides on amount of absorbed hydrogen is established for the group IV metals; it allows optimizing the technological parameters of processes for hydrogenation and grinding. It is shown that spherical powders of titanium, Ti–6Al–4V, and Zr–10% Ti of mass fractions of 40–70 μm and not less than 40 μm with calculated spheroidization level achieving 96% may be produced in Ar + 8 vol % H₂ thermal plasma flow generated by an arc-jet plasma generator. The average roundness factor is 1.01.