Application of electron beam melting in pure titanium crown fabrication: An investigation of dimensional accuracy

Titanium crowns were fabricated using two types of powder bed fusion processes, electron beam melting (EBM) and selective laser melting (SLM), to investigate how building orientation affects dimensional accuracy. A cylindrical model, representing a full crown, was manufactured using both methods at three angles on the build platform (0°, 45°, and 90°). The outer and inner margin diameters, as well as the depth, were measured, and the change rates from the designed values were calculated. Additionally, the circularity of the outer and inner margins and the concentricity between them were evaluated. Results indicated larger change rates in the EBM specimens compared to the SLM specimens. The 90° specimens exhibited the highest circularity in both EBM and SLM. These findings confirmed that EBM is inferior to SLM in terms of dimensional accuracy for crown fabrication and demonstrated that the arrangement of the 3D data significantly affects accuracy.