SINDELFINGEN, Germany and ARENDAL, Norway, Mar 20, Tekna (OSE: TEKNA), a world-leading provider of advanced materials and plasma systems to industry, is pleased to announce the strengthening of its collaboration with Farsoon Europe GmbH to accelerate the industrialization of coarse Ti-6Al-4V powders for Powder based Fusion with Laser Beam (PBF-LB) additive manufacturing.
Farsoon Europe GmbH marked ten years of its “in Europe, by Europe, for Europe” strategy by demonstrating its open and industrially focused approach to metal additive manufacturing. As part of this milestone, titanium components were successfully produced using Tekna’s TEKMAT™ Ti64-53/20-G23 powder on the Farsoon FS721M-H-8-CAMS system, highlighting the compatibility between Tekna’s plasma-atomized powders and Farsoon’s open platform systems.
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.
About Tekna
Tekna is a world-leading provider of sustainable, advanced material solutions, headquartered in Sherbrooke, Canada. The company specializes in high-purity metal powders used in critical applications such as additive manufacturing (3D printing) across the aerospace, defense, medical and consumer electronics industries. The company is positioning itself in the fast-growing market of advanced nanomaterials for the microelectronics sector.
Tekna also develops cutting-edge induction plasma systems designed for both industrial research and production. Its unique, IP-protected plasma technology is powering its hypersonic wind tunnels, PlasmaSonic, which enable simulating material exposure conditions in space.
With over 30 years of experience, Tekna is a trusted partner to a broad portfolio of multinational blue-chip customers for its high-quality products and innovation. Its material solutions help enhance productivity, enable more efficient use of materials and support the transition to more resilient supply chains and a circular economy. For more information, visit https://www.www.tekna.com.
About Farsoon
Founded in 2009, FARSOON Technologies is a system provider of industrial AM platforms for polymers and metals. With an open parameter strategy, high-performance hardware, and local support through FARSOON Europe GmbH, the company enables its customers to scale additive manufacturing with high quality, flexibility, and cost efficiency. For more information, visit: https://www.farsoon.com/
