Rio Tinto partners with MSAM to develop low-cost powder feedstock for metal AM

Partner

Rio Tinto Metal Powders (RTMP), a subsidiary of the multinational mining company Rio Tinto, is based in Sorel-Tracy, QC. RTMP has a powder metallurgy customers in Canada and abroad who will directly benefit from this project.

Challenge

• Metal AM continues to see global growth; however, manufacturers are cautious due to high upfront costs and uncertainty of reliable part production.
• The goal was to reduce costs while enabling efficient steel alloy use in commercial and industrial AM, particularly prototyping and spare part production for automotive and other industries.
• RTMP wanted to upgrade its low cost water atomized steel powders for use in laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) and powder bed binder jetting (PBBJ).

Solution

• RTMP prototyped several approaches to produce AM grade powder suitable for PBBJ and LPBF, which are expected to be scalable for existing production.
• The print recipe developed by MSAM enables printing on current generation systems and achieves target density and hardness, thereby reducing costs for AM adoption.

Impact

• The novel material will facilitate AM adoption by new users, as well as integration into existing commercial and industrial operations. RTMP customers can expect cost savings in initial investment, supply chain and overall manufacturing expenses.
• This project will provide an “adoption roadmap” for low-risk metal AM technology adoption, opening new market domains for RTMP and its customers.
• Commercial availability of a product data sheet is expected as early as 2020.