LabAM24's Morphing Shield Technology has been published in the peer-reviewed journal Virtual and Physical Prototyping. The paper sets out a chamber-free approach to fabricating high-quality Ti-6Al-4V using laser-wire DED, with MST generating a local inert gas environment at the melt zone that holds oxygen below 20 ppm in open atmosphere, eliminating the need for a sealed build chamber.
The study moves from process to validation in three stages: single-bead trials to establish parameters, thin-wall structures to confirm consistency across layers, and a 500 mm complex geometry build to demonstrate the process holds at scale and across changing geometry.
The results of this research disclose that open-air deposition under MST reaches the material quality previously tied to sealed-chamber systems, with mechanical properties comparable to inert-atmosphere benchmarks and well above reactive-atmosphere results. In practical terms, it shows that chamber-quality Ti-6Al-4V can be built without the size limits a sealed enclosure imposes.
Read the full paper here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17452759.2026.2665906
