Study and development of fusion strategies for support-less manufacturing with Electron Beam Powder Bed Fusion technologyVillatoro Funez, Cesar Noe (Avtor) Klobčar, Damjan (Mentor) Ugues, Daniele (Komentor) Doutre, Prierre-Thomas (Komentor) powder bed fusionadditive manufacturingelectron beamssupportsdefectsporositywarpingOverhang regions in Electron Beam Powder Bed Fusion (EB-PBF) are prone to defects like warping, curling or side loss due to poor heat dissipation and residual stresses. Traditionally, defects are mitigated by support structures that introduce material waste and post-processing operations. This study investigates whether adjusting fusion strategies and energy input parameters can reduce overhang defects without the use of supports. A series of experiments were conducted on an ARCAM A1 machine in which multiple fusion strategies, process parameters, energy densities and build themes were studied when building without support structures. Results show that optimized parameters and an optimized fusion strategy of Quad Islands can achieve the best results in terms of geometric accuracy, drastically eliminating warping and side loss defects. This improvement, however, comes at the expense of an increase in the part porosity.20252025-10-14 08:30:39Magistrsko delo/naloga175020UDK: 621.791.722:621.7.019:004.925.8(043.2)VisID: 277258COBISS_ID: 261444867sl