In recent years additive manufacturing has gained in economic importance. Especially in aircraft industry and racing, this innovative method of fabrication is indispensable. With the layer-based built-up it enables geometries which cannot be produced with conventional manufacturing. A notable representative of this kind of primal forming is – due to numerous advantages – the laser powder bed fusion process. The powder spreading act is one of the most important components of the laser powder bed fusion process next to the melting step due to laser energy. The influences on the mentioned spreading act are analyzed in this thesis. Therefore, investigations to the powder characterization like measurement of the particle size distribution, analyzes of the particle morphology and hall-flow-tests are conducted. Subsequently, the powder spreading behavior of different powders is analyzed in course of practical powder spreading investigations. Furthermore, the metallographic modification of the printed components after variation of the spreading velocity is studied. Finally, the possibility of microparticle simulation using the discrete-element-method is evaluated, whereby the scaling question of the particle diameter is analyzed too.