Cobalt-chromium-molybdenum (Co-Cr-Mo) alloys are used for biomedical implants such as artificial joints because they have excellent wear and corrosion resistance and biocompatibility. Electron-beam melting (EBM) is a type of additive manufacturing technique for metals. We used EBM to fabricate 20 rods of a Co-Cr-Mo alloy with height of 160 mm arranged in a 4 × 5 matrix and observed the phase constitution in the middle part (at a height of 80 mm) of the rods by scanning electron microscopy-electron backscatter diffraction. We found that the rods in the center part of the matrix consisted of more of the face-centered cubic (γ) phase and less of the hexagonal close-packed (ε) phase than rods in the outer part. This happened because even though each rod was fabricated under the same beam condition, the rods at the center had been exposed to higher temperature than those in the outer part, and less thermal dissipation took place because the neighboring rods were also heated by the electron beam. This difference in the thermal histories should be taken into consideration when many objects are fabricated simultaneously.

This Paper was Originally Published in Japanese in J. Jpn. Soc. Powder Powder Metallurgy 63 (2016) 10–16. Figure 4 and Fig. 6 were changed for more clear and appropriate explanation.