Manufacturing Letters 32 (2022) 54–58

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Manufacturing Letters
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mfglet

Letters

Production of powders for metal additive manufacturing applications

using surface grinding
Harish Singh Dhami, Priti Ranjan Panda, Koushik Viswanathan ⇑
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Metal powders for additive manufacturing (AM) applications are commonly produced using atomization
Received 1 November 2021 techniques, which are known to be expensive, capital intensive and highly inflexible. In this work, we
Received in revised form 15 February 2022 explore an alternative route for producing metal powders by the use of surface grinding. We demonstrate
Accepted 21 February 2022
the production of nearly monodisperse AISI 52100 steel powders for AM applications. The formation of
Available online 19 March 2022
these powder particles is analyzed using material characterization techniques. We then evaluate the
usability of the produced powders for metal AM using a custom-built directed energy deposition setup.
Keyword:
Post-process analysis of laser-assisted deposition tracks shows that our powders perform just as well as
Additive manufacturing
Metal powders
conventional gas-atomized powders, resulting in void and inclusion-free metallurgical bonding.
Directed energy deposition Ó 2022 Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Powder manufacturing

1. Introduction 304, we use grinding with an abrasive wheel to produce powders.

Metal powders are the starting point for a host of net and near-
net shape manufacturing processes, ranging from powder metal-
lurgy to metal additive manufacturing (AM) [1–3]. Powders for
these applications are produced predominantly by atomization,
which involves breakup of a molten metal stream into fine droplets
via the use of impinging air or water jets. These droplets, com-
monly under 150 lm in size, then fall under gravity and solidify
rapidly, resulting in spherical or nearly spherical metal powders
[4]. Variants of this process are also commercially in use, such as,
for instance, centrifugal or ultrasonic atomization, that nonetheless
work on the same principle of jet breakup.
However, atomization based processes are plagued by large
production costs, the resulting powders often cost 3
to 10
the
price of a cast sample of the same weight. They are also inherently
inflexible in that they cannot be easily or economically adapted to
different material or alloy systems [5,6]. A more complete eco-
nomic analysis of the feed-stock and final part produced in additive
manufacturing has been carried out in Ref. [7]. Furthermore, signif-
icant shape variations are often seen in the final powders, due to
either convective effects or inefficient ligament breakup [8], fur-
ther reducing powder yield and adding to the cost.
In this work, we demonstrate an alternative route for the pro-
duction of metal powders as feedstock for AM. Working with both
plain carbon steel AISI 52100 and an austenitic stainless steel SS
While there have certainly been past reports of spherical particles
occurring in grinding swarf [9,10], particularly with steels, the pre-
cise mechanism of their formation has remained unclear [11–14].
Explanations ranging from chip melting to charge imbalance-
induced chip curl have been proposed by workers in the grinding
community. Furthermore, their utility for AM has never before
been explored.
Here, we present a method for the production of these powders,
and describe their formation using a multi-step model. Our calcu-
lations are confirmed by experimental observations of individual
powder particles. Furthermore, we demonstrate the utility of our
powders for metal AM using a custom-built directed energy depo-
sition (DED) system. Single deposition tracks made using these
powders are practically indistinguishable from those obtained
with conventional gas atomized powders. We believe that our
results should open the door for a new class of scalable powder
generation techniques that would eventually lead to significant
reduction in costs and, potentially, ensure even wider adoption
of metal AM technologies. We also hope that this work will serve
to spur more comprehensive studies of complete cradle-to-grave
manufacturing capabilities within the AM context, and potentially
within a single facility.
2. Methods

⇑ Corresponding author. We produced powders of high-carbon steel AISI 52100 by dry

E-mail address: koushik@iisc.ac.in (K. Viswanathan). surface grinding (without coolant) and post-processing, see

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mfglet.2022.02.004
2213-8463/Ó 2022 Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Harish Singh Dhami, Priti Ranjan Panda and K. Viswanathan
Fig. 1. A 52100 steel workpiece was first cleaned and mounted on
an automatic surface grinding machine. A physical clamp was used
for workholding in lieu of a magnetic chuck, in order to avoid any
unintentional magnetization of removed particles. A 170 mm
diameter alumina grinding wheel was used for surface grinding
and rotated at a constant speed of 2800 RPM, grinding velocity
25 m/s. The depth of cut was fixed at 50 lm in each pass and the
wheel fed automatically. These particular grinding conditions (in-
cluding the use of an alumina wheel) were chosen based on the
predictions of an analytical model described in Refs. [15,16]. The
model predicted maximum temperatures in the chip as a function
of process parameters, and the parameters chosen here were found
to result in the largest temperatures, a necessary condition as
described in the next section.
A collection bin was placed at the end of the feed axis to collect
the material removed from the substrate (swarf). This was then
sieved using a 105 lm sieve to remove stringy chips resulting from
grinding, as well as potential loose abrasives. The mean abrasive
size was much larger (200 lm) than the metal powder produced
so that any loose abrasives were automatically removed during
sieving. Moreover, imaging of randomly sampled stock material
after sieving was carried out using optical microscopy and scan-
ning electron microscopy to visually confirm the absence of any
abrasives. The resulting powder was heated in an oven to 75  C
to remove any moisture. It was found that this step was crucial
for ensuring the required flowability of the final powders since
the presence of even ambient moisture caused the powder parti-
cles to agglomerate.
The heated powder was then loaded into a twin–hopper pow-
der feeder that was connected to a powder nozzle head (Precitec
YC30) via a four-way distribution manifold, see schematic in
Fig. 1. The deposition head was rated for 2 kW maximum power,
with minimum powder focus spot diameter of 2 mm, 28 mm free
Fig. 1. Schematic of the powder production method via grinding. (a) Material removed by surface grinding is collected, sieved and heated, prior to use in a DED process. The
corresponding SEM images show the distribution of spherically-shaped particles in the resulting powder. (b) SEM image of a single particle showing perfectly spherical shape
and dendrites on the surface. (c) Particle size distribution in the final powder shows a size range of  20  100 lm.
55
Manufacturing Letters 32 (2022) 54–58
aperture and standoff distance of 12–14 mm. The powder delivery
was effected via a nitrogen gas line at 3 bar pressure and the
particle-gas stream was fed using flexible 6 mm tubing. The four
lateral nozzle feeds were focused on the substrate and a fiber laser
source (1 kW 1070 nm, Max Photonics) was used to melt the
incoming powder and effect deposition on the substrate. For the
experiments described in this work, the laser power was fixed at
300 W (CW mode) with spot size 50 lm and a powder mass flow
rate of  18 g/min. The performance of the produced powders
was evaluated by printing single layer tracks of 30 mm length on
a steel substrate, and evaluated using post-processing characteri-
zation techniques. Single track experiments using gas atomized
SS304 powder were used to qualitatively evaluate the performance
of our powders with commercially available sources.
For post-processing and deposition characterization, the speci-
men was cut along the cross section, perpendicular to the deposi-
tion direction, using wire EDM. The cross sections were
subsequently polished and etched to directly reveal the grain dis-
tributions. A 10% Nital solution (10 ml HNO3 in 90 ml of ethanol)
was used for 3-5 s dwell time while swabbing manually for etching
the specimens. Initial microstructure analysis was carried out
using an optical microscope (Euromex bscope). Additional analyses
were performed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with
energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS, Zeiss Ultra55), X-ray diffrac-
tion (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM, Titan The-
mis 300 kV). XRD (Rigaku Smartlab) was performed on the
powders after sieving. Data was acquired at 1°/min scan rate.
TEM samples were prepared using focused ion beam milling—a
thin sample of 15 lm
10 lm
2 lm was sliced from a spherical
particle and further thinned down to 50 nm. Hardness measure-
ments were made using FM800 (Future Tech). A 200kgf load was
applied for 10 s dwell time for carrying out the hardness
measurements.
Harish Singh Dhami, Priti Ranjan Panda and K. Viswanathan
3. Results and discussion
We present the results of our powder generation experiments
as well as data on their performance in a DED based AM process.
3.1. Powder properties
Powders produced using the grinding process were analyzed at
each step shown in Fig. 1(a). Firstly, given the choice of process
parameters, material removed from the workpiece contained sig-
nificant fraction of spherically shaped particles, along with stringy
and chip-shaped material. Sieving removed many of the latter and
resulted in predominantly spherical powders, see second SEM
image in Fig. 1(a). This process is therefore capable of producing
high powder yield. The resulting powders were heated and stored
at 75°C to remove any ambient moisture and aid flowability.
Secondly, an analysis of particle size distribution is shown in
Fig. 1(c), with particles varying from 10  100 lm in diameter. Fur-
ther sieving could make this distribution narrower and more
monodisperse at the expense of lowering powder yield. Thirdly, a
high resolution SEM image of a single powder particle is presented
in Fig. 1(b). The occurrence of dendrite-like microstructures on the
surface is clearly evident. Coupled with the perfectly spherical
shape, this feature of the powder particles makes it clear that they
must have been formed by solidification from the melt. Finally, we
note that grinding itself is analogous to machining, except for the
fact that it uses abrasives that are stochastically distributed, with
a range of large negative rake angles and depths of cut. Hence, if
melting is to occur as the particles are removed from the work-
piece, the local chip temperature must reach in excess of 1500°C.
Unfortunately, the nature of the grinding process makes direct
measurement of these temperatures very challenging. This situa-
tion is further encumbered by the fact that conventionally used
models of temperature rise in grinding almost always neglect heat
lost to the chip [17,18], rendering even theoretical order-of-
magnitude estimates impossible. To address this issue, we used a
four-body heat partitioning scheme to estimate the maximum
temperature rise in the removed chip, based on the work of Ju
et al. [19]. We found the maximum possible temperature rise in
Fig. 2. Properties of final powder particles. (a) SEM image and associated EDS spectrum showing presence of thin oxide layer on the surface. (b) X-ray diffraction results on
the powders show the occurrence of both a-Fe and Fe3O4 peaks. (c) TEM SAD and HRTEM images of section just below the surface show that the powder particles are indeed
primarily a-Fe.
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Manufacturing Letters 32 (2022) 54–58
the chip to be  600  C, which is far from the melting temperature
of Fe or any steel. Consequently, the powder particles cannot pos-
sibly be formed from molten drops exiting the grinding zone.
Details of this calculation are provided in our earlier work [15].
It is therefore clear that melting of material removed during
grinding must most likely occur as it transits through the air due
to the highly exothermic oxidation reaction of Fe. The following
simple consideration is in order. Consider a solid chip with an
equivalent spherical shape of radius R. If a thin spherical shell of
thickness d ’ 0:01R on the outer surface is subject to oxidation,
the energy released is sufficient to increase the temperature of
the entire spherical volume to well above the melting point.
Numerical values for the attendant heat release and corresponding
calculations for oxidation reaction kinetics are presented in our
prior work [15,16]. In fact, this oxidation driven melting mecha-
nism in grinding has also been postulated by other research
groups, albeit qualitatively [9]. Grinding parameters reported in
the previous section were chosen to maximize spherical powder
occurrence in accordance with the calculations in [15,16].
Experimental analysis of the particle surface clearly attests to
this route, see Fig. 2. A cross sectional image of a single particle,
obtained using focused ion-beam milling, is shown in Fig. 2(a). Sev-
eral features are evident at once. Firstly, corresponding spec-
troscopy data (yellow box) shows the presence of a very narrow
oxide layer on the surface of the powder. The thickness of this layer
is barely 1 lm, as expected from the energy considerations
described above. Secondly, this SEM image also shows the occur-
rence of voids inside the powders, likely the analogue of solidifica-
tion shrinkage. The corresponding X-ray diffraction images with
the complete powders show the occurrence of both oxide (Fe3O4)
and a-Fe (BCC) peaks, see Fig. 2(b). Compared to BCC iron, these
additional oxide peaks occur at 2h values of 29:6 ; 34:8 ; 55:9
and 61:4 . That a-Fe occurs immediately below the thin oxide layer
is confirmed by TEM SAD and HRTEM images taken near the top
surface, see Fig. 2(c). The TEM image corresponds to a ½112 zone
axis, and the resulting diffraction spots are shown indexed in the
figure.
At this juncture, it is certainly noteworthy that in plain carbon
steels, atomized powders do also show thin oxide layers and
Harish Singh Dhami, Priti Ranjan Panda and K. Viswanathan Manufacturing Letters 32 (2022) 54–58

internal voids, just as with our powders. In fact, commercial use of
atomized powders often first involves suitable treatment in a
reducing environment (such as dissociated ammonia) to reduce
the oxide content [20]. This is particularly pertinent in situations
where even tracer oxide inclusions are unacceptable in the final
deposited tracks.
3.2. Powder performance in laser-based DED
We used the produced powders in a custom-built directed
energy deposition (DED) setup, as described in Section 2. Single
track experiments were performed using nitrogen as the carrier
and shielding gas. The properties of the deposited track are shown
in Fig. 3. The SEM image in the top left panel shows a top view of
the track, with a few attached satellite particles, as expected. The
track thickness is nearly constant  300 lm, and is indistinguish-
able from an equivalent one produced using gas atomized powder
(see bottom right panel). The longitudinal ‘striations’ are a com-
mon occurrence in DED processes when process conditions are
sub-optimal, and have no bearing on the performance of the pow-
der themselves [21,22]. Furthermore, a polished cross sectional
micrograph (top right panel) shows that the deposited material is
metallurgically bonded with the substrate with no internal voids
during deposition. Any potential effect of the thin oxide layer is
also not evident in the final track, cf. EDS data shown in the bottom
left panel. This spectrum was taken completely inside the track
(yellow box) and shows no trace of oxygen.
A detailed microstructural image of the track and substrate
cross section was obtained by metallographic etching, see Fig. 4.
The micrograph in panel (a) shows typical lath martensite struc-
ture that is commonly observed in Fe-C alloys [23]. This is the
result of a diffusionless phase transformation that occurs due to
high cooling rates in the DED process [24]. Microstructure of the
individual sections near the head (red) and base (yellow) of the
track show uniform martensite structure, and uniform bonding
between track and substrate, respectively. The main micrograph
in panel (a) also shows the near triangular heat affected zone of
extent  1 mm, typical of DED processes.
Finally, micro Vickers hardness measurements along the track
cross section and into the substrate are shown in Fig. 4(b). The
error bars in this plot represent the maximum and minimum hard-
ness values obtained from 3 indents in a given region. The hardness

Fig. 3. Single track deposition experiments show the utility of the produced powders. SEM image of a single track shows consistent width of the track (top left panel).
Complete metallurgical bonding is confirmed by the cross sectional micrograph (top right panel). Elemental mapping of the deposited track shows the absence of any
significant oxygen (bottom left panel). Single DED track using gas atomized SS304 powder is shown for comparison (bottom right panel).

Fig. 4. Cross section and properties of deposited track. (a) Etched microstructure of the cross section clearly shows the heat affected zone. Higher magnification micrographs
of the track (red) and the substrate (yellow) show uniform martensite microstructure and uniform metallurgical bonding, respectively. (b) Hardness variation along the
transverse cross section shows uniformly high hardness (380–420 HV) in the deposited track, transitioning to lower hardness (< 300 HV) outside the heat affected zone. Note
that error bars correspond to maximum and minimum measured over 3 indents in the vicinity of the particular location.

57
Harish Singh Dhami, Priti Ranjan Panda and K. Viswanathan
is nearly constant within the track itself and decreases sharply out-
side the heat affected zone, as marked in the figure. High hardness
values within the martensite phase (380–420 HV with a standard
deviation of  8 HV over all values within this region) again reiter-
ate the fact that the deposited track is practically identical with
that produced when using conventional gas atomized powders.
The microhardness values of additively manufactured structures
using these steel powders are typically in the range of 300–400
HV [25,26].
3.3. Implications of our results
In addition to the results with plain carbon steel AISI 52100 pre-
sented in this work, we have also evaluated the performance of
analogously produced powders in stainless steel SS 304. While
machinability of stainless steel is notably lower than plain carbon
steel, the final powders show similar properties and performance
to that described here. Hence, we are optimistic that the grinding
route for making metal powders suitable for DED based AM is of
wider applicability than perhaps implied by our results. In fact,
the possibility of using even non-spherical grinding swarf for
DED is one that we are currently exploring. The use of non-
spherical powders in general presents obvious challenges of flowa-
bility and deposition efficiency, and represents an active area of
research within the AM community [27–30].
The use of non-spherical powders also presents two distinct
advantages—firstly the oxidation route is not necessary for these
powders so that a wider range of metallic systems can be easily
investigated. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, this will
open the doors to the production of high quality powders from var-
ious systems such as refractories and ceramics. The inherent scal-
ability of the grinding process will then only serve to ensure high
production rates and, if successful, aid in significantly enhancing
both the economic competitiveness and applicability of AM
processes.
4. Closing remarks
We have demonstrated the use of surface grinding to produce
metal powders in AISI 52100 plain carbon steel. Powder perfor-
mance in DED based metal AM was evaluated using single track
deposition tests on a flat steel substrate. The final print quality
was found to be nearly identical with those obtained using conven-
tional gas atomized powders. We are hopeful that our results will
help fuel additional research in this direction, leading to more eco-
nomical methods for powder production for metal AM.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge financial support from
the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Govt. of India
under grant CRG/2018/002058. Financial support from the Indian
Institute of Science, Bangalore is also gratefully acknowledged.
58
Manufacturing Letters 32 (2022) 54–58
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