Production of Powders for Additive Machines by Plasma Spraying

The market for additive technologies is one of the most actively developing markets in the world. Against the background of the global growth in the production of products using additive printing methods, there is a gradual decrease in the rate of development of additive technologies in the Russian Federation. One of the reasons for this slowdown is the extremely small volume of powders produced in the country for additive machines, the almost complete absence of industries that produce domestic installations for the manufacture of powder steels and alloys.The paperpresents the research results and basic information about the design of theplasma atomizer developed at Saint Petersburg Polytechnic university. Data on the study of the structure and properties of stainless steel, bronze and nickel alloy powders sprayedon the developed installation are presented, data on the technological features of the production of powders of different chemical composition, alloys are given.Itisshownthatplasma atomization makes it possible to obtain high-quality powders suitablefor use in additive machines. The powders have a high degree ofsphericity; the chemical composition of the obtained powders practically did not differ from the compositions of the initial feed stocks.