Cold Metal Fusion is the additive manufacturing process enabling relatively low-cost selective laser sintering (SLS) polymer machines to produce relatively high-value metal parts.
The video below describes an example. The impeller is for an undersea pump used in an oil and gas installation. This version made through additive manufacturing with Cold Metal Fusion replaces a previous component made through casting. The new part is titanium while the earlier part was steel. The 3D printed part is therefore lighter, reducing the energy needed to spin this part to run the pump, and also longer-lasting. The titanium part extends the interval between impeller replacements, a big benefit for a part operating underwater.
This part was produced by CADMore Metal on its SLS machines. I posted an episode of Manufacturing Unlimited about Cold Metal Fusion and CADMore Metal’s application of this process. Watch that episode. Here is the bonus follow-up to that episode looking at the impeller part: