Production of Multimaterial Components by Material Extrusion - Fused Filament Fabrication (ME-FFF)

Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) is a type of material extrusion (ME) additive manufacturing and is one of the most commonly used polymer-based additive manufacturing techniques. FFF could be used to produce green parts with complex geometry and after debinding and sintering a full metal or ceramic part is obtained. FFF offers the possibility of combining different materials. For polymers this is relatively easy. but for the production of ceramic and/or metal parts consisting of different materials this is a challenging task. First the materials to be combined have to show a similar expansion coefficient, second their powders have to sinter similarly and additionally both feedstocks have to be printable in the same machine and to show a comparable debinding behaviour. Here the complete processing route for the combined printing of filaments from steel and zirconia will be shown with emphasis on the required properties of the powders and related feedstocks.