Powder production by gas atomisation

Hereon/Florian Pyczak

Powder production by gas atomisation is achieved by lowering a rod of pre-alloyed material into an induction coil. The rod melts continuously at the tip and the melt stream falls into a gas nozzle. This is constructed as a ring slit nozzle and by blowing argon gas into it the melt stream atomises into small droplets which solidify in the form of small globular particles. The metal powder produced in this way has a powder particle diameter distribution between 10 to 355 µm and contains only low levels of minor element impurities, as for example oxygen or nitrogen, because the entire process is performed in vacuum or protective gas atmosphere. If the respective pre-alloyed rods are available all kinds of titanium alloys and intermetallic TiAl alloys can be atomised.