Tekna and Farsoon Strengthen Collaboration to Industrialize Ti-6Al-4V Powders for PBF-LB Manufacturing

Building on this milestone, Farsoon and Tekna are deepening their collaboration to industrialize the use of coarse Ti-6Al-4V powders in PBF-LB, responding directly to market demand for higher productivity, safer powder handling, and lower cost per part. 

From Powder Safety to Industrial Scalability 

Conventional fine powders used in PBF-LB are often classified as flammable, leading to complex safety measures and increased operational costs. 

Tekna’s Ti64 coarse powder (TEKMAT™ Ti64-90/45) offers lower oxygen sensitivity, enabling safer powder handling, recycling, storage, and transport. This directly supports industrial-scale deployment by reducing both risk and cost throughout the powder lifecycle. 

Productivity by Design: Thick Layers with Stable Processing 

Farsoon’s open platform philosophy enables users to expand process windows beyond conventional parameters. By leveraging coarse powder and thicker deposition layers, build times can be significantly reduced while maintaining stable process conditions. 

Testing on FS273M-2 and FS721M-H-8-CAMS systems using a 90 µm layer thickness has demonstrated that, despite the increased layer thickness, as-built Ti-6Al-4V mechanical properties remain fully aligned with standard PBF-LB benchmarks: 

• Yield strength ≥ 850 MPa 

• Ultimate tensile strength ≥ 900 MPa 
• Compared to a typical 60 µm layer thickness, the theoretical build rate increases by more than 20 %, directly translating into higher machine productivity and lower manufacturing costs.

Shaped Beam Technology: Unlocking the Next Level of Throughput 

To further accelerate industrial adoption, Farsoon is extending process capability beyond conventional Gaussian beam exposure through its shaped beam technology. 

Unlike Gaussian beams, shaped beams allow: 

• Larger and tunable spot sizes 

• Customized energy distribution 

• Improved melt pool stability at large layer thicknesses 

This capability is essential for reliably processing coarse powders at elevated layer thicknesses, enabling a step change in productivity. By combining higher layer thickness and shaped beam exposure, the theoretical build rate per laser can be increased by more than 80 % compared to processing at 90 µm with a Gaussian beam. 

Shaped beam technology therefore represents a key enabler for series and mass production, shifting PBF-LB from prototype-oriented manufacturing toward economically competitive serial production. 

One Powder Platform, Faster Qualification 

Tekna’s ability to supply coarse and fine PBF-LB powder fractions from the same dedicated plasma atomizers simplifies material qualification. This approach allows end users to: 

• Qualify multiple process strategies faster 

• Reduce material approval effort 

• Lower overall industrialization costs 

Open Innovation for Serial Production 

Serial production powered by innovation is the core of Farsoon’s open philosophy. 
Through close collaboration with ecosystem partners such as Tekna, Farsoon continues to break traditional productivity boundaries in PBF-LB, enabling customers to reduce costs per part, improve operational safety, and scale additive manufacturing toward true industrial production.