Scientific measurement instrument for characterizing the flow behavior of powdered metal feedstock used in additive manufacturing — designed, additively manufactured, and CNC-machined during my Uniformity Labs tenure (May 2022 – May 2023).
Prototype powder-flow measurement hardware with 3D-printed and transparent components. The device was built to turn powder behavior — flow, sticking, bridging, and angle of repose — into repeatable observations for additive-manufacturing process development.
A scientific measurement instrument I designed at Uniformity Labs for characterizing the flow behavior of powdered metal feedstock — the metal powders used as input to laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) and binder-jetting additive manufacturing systems.
The device combined three things in one build:
- Original design — I produced the geometry from requirements through to manufacturing-ready files.
- Additive manufacturing — the body of the device was metal-3D-printed using LPBF, leveraging Uniformity's own metal powders.
- CNC machining — post-process precision finishing on the printed body's critical surfaces.
This repository is a portfolio piece. The device itself, all CAD/drawings, and the measurement methodology are the proprietary property of Uniformity Labs. See NOTICE.md.
Sister repositories: additive-manufacturing, tensile-testing, cnc, and tumbler-oven. Together they document the same Uniformity Labs powder-to-part workflow from powder conditioning through process validation.
Powder flow behavior is one of the most important properties of additive manufacturing feedstock. A powder that flows poorly produces poor builds — gaps in the recoated layer, density variations, defects. Characterizing flow behavior is therefore central to Uniformity's value proposition (ultra-low-porosity powders) and to QC of every batch of powder shipped.
A measurement device that can be partially built using the same LPBF process the powders are intended for is a particularly elegant solution: it puts the test instrument and its sample on the same metallurgical footing.
The funnel measures powder flow rate by timing how long a specified mass of powder takes to discharge through a calibrated orifice — the same principle as the Hall flowmeter specified in ISO 4490 ("Metallic powders — Determination of flow rate by means of a calibrated funnel") and equivalently ASTM B213. The Hall procedure releases a 50 g sample of metallic powder through a 2.5 mm orifice in a 60° cone funnel and reports flow time to the nearest 0.1 second.
A Hall-flowmeter funnel is itself a commodity item. The reason a custom instrument was worth designing was not the funnel geometry alone but the test environment around it — repeatable mounting, instrumented sample handling, and the ability to manufacture the critical funnel surface using the same LPBF process the production powders are intended for.
(For context: when a metal powder is too fine to flow through a Hall funnel — a common case with the finer cuts used in LPBF — the equivalent test uses a Carney funnel with a 5 mm orifice per ASTM B964. The same instrument architecture supports either funnel.)
The device went through four phases in roughly six months — polymer prototype, LPBF metal print, CAM programming, CNC finishing.
The first prototype was 3D-printed in polymer to validate the assembly geometry — bolt-circle layout, sample-window placement, and overall mass — before committing the design to metal.
Three months later: the same housing geometry, this time printed in metal via Uniformity's own LPBF process. Threaded studs were printed integrated with one half of the assembly, eliminating a downstream tapping step.
Programming the post-AM CNC operations in SolidWorks CAM — a multi-setup job on a Haas VF2 Mill: drilling, contour milling, and helical Z-level finishing on the conical bore (~50 minutes total cycle time).
The finished funnel — LPBF body, CNC-machined bore. The internal cone is the dimensionally-critical surface (per ISO 4490) and was machined to spec rather than left as-printed; the AM-to-CNC handoff happened three days after the CAM session.
- Brief narrative of the design process and what made the project distinctive (forthcoming).
- Photos I took during fabrication, where they document the work without exposing proprietary internals.
- Reflections on combining additive manufacturing with traditional CNC machining in one part — when each approach is the right call.
- Exploratory FEA on a public-geometry cone in
analysis/iso4490-fea/with the portfolio writeup atreflections/exploratory-fea-iso4490.md. This study uses only the publicly-specified ISO 4490:2018 / ASTM B964 funnel dimensions and published-handbook material properties for AlSi10Mg and 316 SS — explicitly no Uniformity geometry, no employer IP — to demonstrate thermal- and structural-FEA methodology on a part a GitHub reader can verify against the public standard.
- Uniformity Labs' CAD files, drawings, or measurement parameters.
- The specific testing methodology or correlation data.
- Photos of internal device geometry that constitute trade-secret-equivalent disclosure.
See NOTICE.md. Original written content and photographs I have the right to publish are released under CC-BY 4.0.
| Section | Status |
|---|---|
| Repo description, license, NOTICE, gitignore | ✓ done |
| ISO 4490 / Hall flowmeter framing | ✓ done |
| Design and fabrication arc (4 photos) | ✓ done |
| Hybrid AM + CNC reflection | forthcoming |
| Curated photos | ✓ in place (more to add as needed) |