Method additively manufacturing a component by selective melting or selective sintering of powder beds has compactness optimized by high energy beam

The invention relates to a method of manufacturing a workpiece by selectively melting or selective sintering of powder beds by high-energy beam, comprising the steps of: (a) providing a powdered particulate material (60), (b) a first layer is deposited (10) of powder on a support (80), (c) is flushed at least one region of said first layer (10) with said beam (95) so as to locally heat the powder said region to a temperature above the sintering temperature of the powder so that the particles of said powder and fused or sintered from said region then form at least a first element integral (15), (d ) a second layer is deposited (20) of powder over said first layer of powder (10), (e) scans at least one said second layer region (20) by the beam (95) so as to heat the powder this region to a temperature above the sintering temperature of this powder such that the particles of the powder and sintered or melted form at least one second element integral (25), (f) repeating steps (d) and (e) for each new powder layer to be deposited over a preceding layer, until the complete formation of the part. Typically, the powder has a multimodal particle size distribution.