The use of electron beam welding for additive manufacturing was first developed by Vivek Davé in 1995 as part of his PhD thesis at
MIT. The process was referred to as electron beam solid freeform fabrication (EBSFF). A team at
NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) led by Karen Taminger developed the process, calling it electron beam freeform fabrication (EBF3). EBF3 is a NASA-patented additive manufacturing process designed to build near-net-shape parts requiring less raw material and finish machining than traditional manufacturing methods. EBF3 is a process by which NASA plans to build metal parts in
zero-gravity environments; this layer-additive process uses an electron beam and a solid wire
feedstock to fabricate metallic parts. Future astronauts stationed on
the Moon or
Mars may be able to employ EBF3 to produce replacement parts locally rather than relying on parts launched from Earth, possibly even mining feedstock from the surrounding soils. The aviation industry has the most potential for the procedure, say experts at the NASA LaRC, because significant progress should be made in reducing machining waste byproducts. Typically, an aircraft maker would start with a 6,000-pound block of titanium and use thousands of liters of cutting fluid to reduce it to a 300-pound item, leaving 5,700 pounds of material that needed to be recycled. According to Taminger, "With EBF3 you can build up the same part using only 350 pounds of titanium and machine away just 50 pounds to get the part into its final configuration. And the EBF3 process uses much less electricity to create the same part." ==Process==