Experimental Investigation and Visualization of the Transonic Gas Flow in an Industrial Scale Test Bench for Metal Powder Atomization

One of the current major barriers to the industrialization of metal additive manufacturing (AM) is the cost-effective production of a high-quality metal powder, usually in the range of 1-150 μm, making investigations of the atomization process essential. Numerical investigations usually reach their limits due to the massive multiscale problem, whereas experimental investigations are either performed on a laboratory scale with limited transferability or on industrial equipment with limited accessibility for measurement techniques. To face this challenge a new atomization test bench (ATB) is developed which was tailored for detailed experimental investigation on the fundamentals of atomization in an industrial scale set-up. All input parameters can be set individually and are measured continuously and precisely. At the same time, the good optical accessibility allows a temporally and spatially highly resolved visualization of the gas flow as well as a detailed investigation of the mechanisms of decomposition during primary and secondary atomization.