Understanding powder degradation in metal additive manufacturing to allow the upcycling of recycled powders

To ensure the financial viability of powder-based additive manufacturing technologies, the recycling of powders is common practice. This paper shows the lifecycle of metal powder in additive manufacturing, investigating powder manufacture, powder usage, mechanisms of powder degradation and the usage of end-of-life powder. Degradation of powders resulting from repeated reuses was found to be a widespread problem; components produced from heavily...