Tailor-Made Forging Tools by Laser Metal Deposition

The desire for individualized products forces the companies to a great diversity of combinable parts. This way, the clients can compile their personalized product. As this trend is not just limited on visual parts but also for functional components, laser additive manufacturing of metals is used more and more often in manufacturing. To bring more additive manufacturing into mass production, Laser Beam Melting and Laser Metal Deposition will be qualified for the use in tool manufacturing within the Bavarian research association “ForNextGen – Next Generation Tools”. The first subproject within this research association investigates the potential of Laser Metal Deposition in the production of hot and cold forging tools. Within initial tests optimized process, parameters for the processing of the hot-work steel 1.2709 are determined by single welding beads. The achieved density and the inner structure are analyzed within cubes that were built with the investigated parameters. As forging tools are usually made of high-carbon tool steel, the processing of materials with a rising percentage of carbon will be part of further investigations.