Acoustic manipulation for metal additive manufacturing powder sorting

Metal additive manufacturing is a crucial technology in industries such as aerospace, energy, and automotive manufacturing. However, its further development is limited by powder utilization efficiency and material costs. In this study, we developed a phased array acoustic tweezer system to separate and sort metal powder materials used in additive manufacturing. Using the finite element method, we explored the advantages of phased arrays, analyzed the acoustic potential field and acoustic radiation force, and demonstrated the varying trajectories of different particles within the acoustic field. Our experiments demonstrated that phased array acoustic tweezers can alter particle trajectories and achieve separation of mixed powders of different sizes or densities. This acoustic manipulation platform can separate different particles without relying on additional physical properties of the particles like magnetic or electric fields, pioneering a novel method for the separation and sorting of micro-sized metal additive manufacturing powders.