Production costs of PBF technologies for metal materials differ with respect to production costs of PBF technologies for polymer materials:
The building activity has higher variable material costs due to the existence of support structures that should be removed.
The removal activity comprises the process of detachment of the products from the baseplate; this activity has its own machine costs, but also its own material and consumables costs; besides, during the removal is lost powder that was closed by the supports, which increases consumption of the expensive metal powder;
The post-processing activity for metal materials is demanding; it comprises:
high equipment (machine and consumables) costs for all forms of mechanical treatment (shot-peening, machining etc.) and heat treatment
energy costs for mechanical treatment procedures, and particularly high energy costs for heat treatment procedures
The production costs of PBF technologies for metal materials, therefore, are considerably more complex than the production costs of PBF technologies for polymer materials. Since the section about the production costs is just an auxiliary part of D4AM Wiki, the procedure for calculation of production costs of PBF technologies for metal materials is not presented in this initial version of the repository.