Ames Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been awarded $5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office to improve the production and composition of metal-alloy powders used in additive manufacturing (AM). The project will improve powder production by developing advances in a high-pressure gas-atomization process pioneered at Ames Laboratory and will design and customize alloys specifically for AM processing methods.

Modeling and simulation of gas-atomization process stages at Ames Laboratory will use a flow simulation code developed by National Energy Technology Laboratory for part of the work. The experimental gas-atomization work and alloy design calculations/verification also will be performed in the powder synthesis facilities at Ames Laboratory. Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility will conduct the corresponding AM experiments.