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2017
Conference Paper
Titel
Additive manufacturing of hardmetals
Abstract
Additive manufacturing of polymer, metal and ceramic materials is more and more common. For hardmetals however, little work has been reported so far. Since most additive manufacturing methods are based on melting or lithography-based processes, they cannot be used for hardmetals due to the fact that hardmetals neither completely melt nor that they are transparent for the used wavelengths. Furthermore the high density of hardmetals based on tungsten carbide leads to problems with manufacturing of fine and complex structures and manageability of printed parts. Yet, the implementation of additive manufacturing in the field of hardmetals would undoubtful enhance the possibility to produce complex shaped parts which cannot be produced by conventional means and also to produce parts within hours instead of days because of the tool-free production technology. Thus, within this study limitations of additive manufacturing of hardmetals in general as well as for three dedicated manufacturing methods are investigated. These include the two powder based methods of 3D binder jetting and selective laser sintering and the suspension based method of thermoplastic 3D printing.
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