We recently received some fantastic news from one of our beta customers. To independently verify the quality of the parts coming off our Metal-Base printer, they sent several "as-built" 316L stainless steel samples to the Experimental Mechanics Laboratory (LEM) at the University of Zagreb's Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture.
The tests were conducted without our intervention, and the results completely validate our unique approach to Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF).
The Testing Conditions
To put these numbers into context, it is important to understand how these parts were printed:
-
Material: 316L Stainless Steel
-
Layer Thickness: 0.05 mm
-
Atmosphere: Printed in a Nitrogen (N2) environment with 4-5% chamber oxygen and 2% supply oxygen.
-
Surface Finish: "As-built" (tested straight off the printer with no machining or polishing).
In standard LPBF systems, printing 316L in a 4-5% oxygen environment usually results in heavily oxidized, brittle parts. However, our moving gantry architecture utilizes a highly localized, ultra-high-velocity gas shield. This design aggressively evacuates spatter and fumes before oxidation can occur, resulting in an incredibly dense, clean melt pool even with standard-purity nitrogen.
The Results
The independent tensile tests confirm that our localized gas flow and optimized melting dynamics produce mechanical properties that far exceed conventional 316L specifications.
Below is the translated data table directly from the university's test report, detailing the results across all five specimens:
Why This Matters
Achieving nearly 50% average elongation on an unmachined, as-built surface is a massive technical hurdle. It proves that the internal layer-to-layer metallurgical bonding of our printed parts is virtually flawless, with near-zero porosity or lack-of-fusion defects.
Furthermore, the standard deviations were remarkably low (just 2.417 MPa for tensile strength and 4.554 MPa for yield strength). This demonstrates that our moving gantry system delivers consistent, repeatable laser incidence and gas shielding across the entire build area.
Ultimately, these results prove that Metal-Base users can achieve structural, high-ductility metal parts while drastically cutting operational costs by avoiding the need for expensive ultra-high-purity argon or extreme chamber purging.
You can view and download the full, independent test report (Croatian original) below.