Additive Manufacturing of Magnetic Materials for Electrical Applications

Additive manufacturing (AM) of magnetic materials has emerged as a transformative approach for the fabrication of components in electrical machines, transformers and power electronics. By building complex geometries layer by layer directly from digital designs, AM enables the realisation of novel magnetic core topologies that are impossible with conventional stamping or lamination. Soft magnetic alloys such as silicon steels, Fe–Co–V and Fe–Ni permalloys can be processed via powder bed fusion, directed energy deposition or electron-beam melting to achieve tailored microstructures, high densities and engineered magnetic pathways. This flexibility permits integration of internal air gaps, crack networks or graded compositions to suppress eddy currents, reduce core losses and tune magnetic hysteresis. Computational modelling and in situ process monitoring further allow control of residual stresses and phase transformations, supporting optimisation of coercivity and permeability. Challenges remain in achieving surface finish, minimising porosity and mitigating thermal distortion, particularly for high-silicon alloys that are prone to cracking. Nevertheless, recent advances in hatching strategies, heat-treatment protocols and multi-material deposition are converging to deliver additively manufactured magnetic components with performance approaching or exceeding that of conventionally produced equivalents. The global drive towards more efficient electric machines for renewable energy, e-mobility and miniaturised power converters underlines the practical significance of these developments.

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Additive Manufacturing of Magnetic Materials for Electrical Applications publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in additive manufacturing of magnetic materials for electrical applications across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Additive manufacturing: Layer-by-layer fabrication of three-dimensional parts directly from digital models.

Soft magnetic material: A ferromagnetic alloy with high permeability and low coercivity, used for guiding alternating magnetic flux.

Powder bed fusion: An AM process in which a focused heat source selectively melts or sinters powder particles to form solid structures.

Eddy current: Circulating currents induced in conductive materials by time-varying magnetic fields, causing energy losses.

Magnetic hysteresis: The lag between magnetisation and applied magnetic field, depicted by the B–H loop.

Coercivity: The reverse magnetic field strength required to reduce the net magnetisation of a ferromagnet to zero.

Residual stress: Locked-in stresses within a material after processing that can influence magnetic and mechanical behaviour.

References

1. Structure Design of Soft Magnetic Materials Using Electron‐Beam‐Based Additive Manufacturing. Advanced Materials (2023).
2. Tailoring magnetic hysteresis of additive manufactured Fe-Ni permalloy via multiphysics-multiscale simulations of process-property relationships. npj Computational Materials (2023).
3. Cracking of soft magnetic FeSi to reduce eddy current losses in stator cores. Additive Manufacturing (2023).