Captured: High-Fidelity Measurements of Spatter Sizes, Shapes, and Landing Sites within a Laser Powder Bed Fusion Machine

Published

July 5, 2026

Author(s)

Nicholas O'Brien, Jordan Weaver, Satbir Singh, Jack Beuth

Abstract

Parts produced by laser powder bed fusion of metals (PBF-LB/M) continue to suffer from defects caused by spatter particles, byproducts of the melt-pool and vapor plume, that land on parts during printing and limit broader adoption of the process. Prior studies have detected spatter landing sites using in situ imaging, but these techniques often miss particles and provide imprecise size measurements. To compensate, ex-situ imaging is commonly used to measure spatter sizes and morphologies; however, the methods used to collect spatter samples often obscure the correlation between a particle's size or morphology and its landing location. This correlation is essential for understanding spatter induced defects and for validating spatter transport models. This manuscript presents results from an experiment designed to observe this correlation with higher fidelity than in previous work. Spatter particles from a single printed layer were captured using a tacky sheet metal plate that covered the build area, preserving particles at their original landing locations. This approach enabled high resolution measurements of landing positions, particle sizes, and morphologies. The general nature of the size distribution and appearance of agglomerates for the single experiment agrees with other studies on different machines, parameters, and alloys. The new capture method then revealed new insights: particles larger than 100 µm tend to be nonspherical agglomerates, which may help explain why the largest particles—surpassing 200 µm—can travel up to 150 mm downstream from the part. The high-fidelity measurements of size and landing sites are further discussed from the context of process monitoring, where it may be possible to detect only the largest spatter particles as a proxy for smaller ones.

Citation

Additive Manufacturing

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2026.105303

Local Download

Keywords

Spatter Contamination, Laser Powder Bed Fusion, In-Situ Monitoring, EOS M290, Spatter Transport

Citation

O'Brien, N. , Weaver, J. , Singh, S. and Beuth, J. (2026), Captured: High-Fidelity Measurements of Spatter Sizes, Shapes, and Landing Sites within a Laser Powder Bed Fusion Machine, Additive Manufacturing, [online], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2026.105303, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=961600 (Accessed August 1, 2026)

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