A research grant from the regional government of Wallonia has been awarded to LASEA, a company specializing in systems for precision laser micromachining, and Aerosint, a startup company developing selective powder deposition technology for Additive Manufacturing (AM). The 2-year project, which will have a total budget of nearly €1 million, aims to lay the groundwork for building a hybrid AM system that combines metal powder laser melting with in situ laser ablation.
The two companies bring complementary expertise needed to investigate the feasibility of such a hybrid process. LASEA will investigate the powder melting and ablation process conditions. Aerosint will be focusing on powder handling and deposition control of the metal powders in the scope of the project.
This hybrid process is aimed at applications in the traditional markets of LASEA, namely the watch & jewelry, electronics, and medical devices industries. For these industries, the part surface quality and dimensional tolerances obtained with existing metal AM technologies are often insufficient. Through its customers’ requests, LASEA sees a clear advantage in a process that combines the geometrical freedom offered by L-PBF with the fine details and surface finish quality possible using laser ablation.
We always seek synergies with other companies in our market niches and we are convinced that the collaboration with Aerosint will be pleasant and fruitful. At LASEA, we have been developing subtractive laser systems for many years for applications such as cutting, drilling, engraving, marking… based on ablation with ultrashort pulse lasers, a technology in great expansion and for which the advantages have been demonstrated over the past decades.
At the same time, we are seeing attraction around laser additive manufacturing. As a laser integrator, we are seeing this as an opportunity to enter this domain in an innovative way. Thanks to the collaboration with Aerosint and its innovative powder management system, we are convinced that their approach combined with LASEA knowhow on ultrafast laser micromachining will lead us to promising results.
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