Feasibility study of a bi-materials magnetic laminate FeSi6.5/ceramic using powder bed fusion additive manufacturing

The ferromagnetic material FeSi6.5 exhibits lower magnetic losses compared to the more widely used FeSi3, commonly employed in the production of laminated sheets for stators and rotors. This makes FeSi6.5 a promising candidate for electric motor manufacturing. However, its high silicon content complicates significantly production through conventional lamination processes. Additive manufacturing emerges as a viable alternative for this application. In electric motors, laminated sheets are separated by insulating layers to reduce eddy current losses. While additive manufacturing allows the fabrication of complex shapes, it is currently limited to single-material structures and cannot replicate the laminated architecture of electric motors. Research on multi-material additive manufacturing remains in its early stages of development. The challenge is to manufacture laminated electric motors using additive manufacturing, with thin ceramic insulating layers and ferromagnetic FeSi6.5 material layers. To achieve this, we have developed an innovative system to modify our LPBF manufacturing machine to work with two materials. This paper presents our work on the modification of our LPBF machine for the bi-material process, as well the ceramic/metal interface optimization.