Those 3D printing companies focusing on consumable products therefore tend to rely on metal printing, but that too comes with a few downsides. metal 3D Printing is the process by which parts are manufactured by a laser fusing together high performance metals, layer by layer. This technology, called selective laser sintering (also known as SLS 3D printing), is capable of producing very detailed results, but there are some unfortunate problems inherent to these powdered metals.
For these naturally contain oxides, which limits the metal's inherent strength in durability. It might be best to regard them as tiny bubbles in the material that make the structure less sound, just as bubbles in dough or concrete would do. As Dr. Dirian Apelian, professor of mechanical engineering at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, stated:
That's a very bad thing. It would be like having little pin holes in a glass pane, adding lots of places wher the glass could break. The powders for these high-temperature melting alloys are difficult to make and they have a lot of oxides, so it may not be as strong and may lead to failures.
Other downsides inherent to metal 3D printing are a lack of quality and variety: there are only a few alloys that are both suitable for SLS 3D printing and available in sufficient quantities. As James Bredt, a co-founder of Viridis 3D, which specializes in this technology said: 'It's a small market. The manufacturers of these metal powders are huge companies making the powders for different industries. Most don't really work on these laser machines. They're not set up to produce stuff of purity as high as you need for a laser sintering process.'
