1. Laser melting on powder bed

The aim of this section is to give a brief introduction to the main process used to produce mold cavities in additive manufacturing: laser melting on a powder bed. The focus here is on the use of maraging steel, the most commonly used steel for mold cavities.

The laser powder bed fusion process [BM 7 900] is known by several names (figure 1 ), but will be abbreviated here to LPBF (Laser Powder Bed Fusion), which is still one of the most widely used acronyms in plastics processing today, along with SLM, the acronym registered by SLM Solutions.