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October 2023
Conference Paper
Titel
Investigation of Binder Droplet Impact in Metal Binder Jetting
Abstract
The metal binder jetting (MBJ) process is a powder bed-based Additive Manufacturing (AM) process, which is attracting growing interest. In this process, a liquid binder deposited by a print head is bonding the powder particles to create green parts, which are then consolidated by a subsequent sintering step. The parameters of this liquid deposition are crucial for high quality parts because the droplet impact influences the porosity of the parts. In this work, different droplet volumes are investigated by using two print heads in order to describe the influence of the size, weight and amount of the droplets on the parts quality. The experiments are conducted using 316L stainless steel in two different sizes and a titanium alloy Ti6Al4V. Several properties of powders and parts are analysed such as powder size distribution, green part density, powder bed density and bending strength. Furthermore, drop watcher analyses were conducted. The results show that the print head with lower drop volume introduces more porosity in the green part compared to the higher version. Also, they show higher strength values during the bending tests. The drop watcher analyses indicate that the drops can be very irregular in size, trajectory, and velocity. The fire frequency, voltage and pulse width needs to be adjusted accordingly. Further research can be carried out using optimized firing parameters for the print heads.
Author(s)