The industry analyst states novel metal powder producers, like Equispheres, are positioned to meet demand.

 OTTAWA, ONTARIO: A new Technology Spotlight recently produced by industry analyst IDC and sponsored by Equispheres dissects and examines trends, technologies, and challenges related to the metal AM market. The resulting paper predicts the demand for aluminum powder in the AM market to grow from $147 million in 2018, to over $695 million in 2023; a 36.5% compound annual growth rate.  It also discusses the challenges of introducing new technologies to the market and how Equispheres is uniquely positioned to help meet this market demand.

“The entire additive manufacturing industry has faced challenges surrounding the mechanical properties and reliability of their production powders for years,” says Kevin Nicholds, President and CEO of Equispheres, “now recent events have permanently impacted existing supply chain approaches and there is immense market pressure on the additive manufacturing industry to improve process reliability and part mechanical properties so that supply chain gaps can be filled. With our unique powder, we have the ingredients to enable the industry to meet this challenge.”

The IDC Technology Spotlight compares the current state of metal AM which relies on slow, expensive, and often unreliable technology against the modernizations now available. With the ability to use higher quality feedstock in production, metal additive manufacturing, in certain applications, is now a much more appealing option. One quote included in the report from Kent Firestone, CEO of Stratasys Direct, speaks to what light-weighting with aluminum alloy powders can mean, “Saving just one pound (in weight from various components) helps improve efficiency and can reduce fuel consumption by up to 14,000 gallons a year.” That’s the kind of result that gets manufacturers excited for new technologies.

The full IDC Technology Spotlight titled High-Performance Aluminum Powder: Fueling Metal AM Market Growth covers the following:

• Key stats and takeaways
• The benefits of high-performance aluminum powders
• Trends (in AM solutions)
  • Survey results: How organizations use or plan to use 3D printing over the next 12-24 months
  • Summary: Forces combining to drive demand for new AM powders
• Equispheres vendor profile
• Challenges
• Analyst conclusions

View the full paper on Equispheres.com.