Innsbruck adds electron beam metal printer for high-temperature alloy research
The University of Innsbruck has installed a Calibur3 electron beam metal additive manufacturing system from the UK supplier Wayland Additive. The machine was funded through the Austrian Research Promotion Agency's 2024 R&D infrastructure programme and will support material and process development, with a focus on difficult and high-temperature alloys. It is shared across engineering, mechatronics and materials science groups. The university selected the system mainly for its NeuBeam charge neutralisation, which avoids the extensive pre-sintering of the powder bed that other electron beam powder bed fusion machines need to limit smoke events caused by electrostatic charging. The small build tank and open architecture let researchers change scan strategies, beam parameters and energy input during a build, and high-speed thermal imaging supports control of microstructure. The university describes the Calibur3 as the first system of this generation in Austria. The installation adds an academic platform for comparing electron beam and laser powder bed processes, rather than a production capacity increase.