Apr 13, 2016 | By Tess
Metal additive manufacturing, one of the most promising areas of 3D printing technologies, is advancing quickly as various sectors, including the automotive industry, aerospace industry, and healthcare industry, have dedicated many resources and research towards its development. The appeal of additively manufacturing metal parts rather than make them from traditional molding processes is of course the potential to make complex designs, including complex internal structures, as well as the material efficiency of the technology.
To further develop metal 3D printing and to identify various factors that affect the additive manufacturing process, a team of researchers from the Missouri University of Science and Technology are collaborating with Kansas-based Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies. Together, the institutions will work on a five-year project aimed at performing material analysis for selective laser melting (SLM) processes.
The project, along with a team of seven Missouri S&T professors, is being led by Dr. Ming Leu, the Keith and Pat Bailey Missouri Distinguished Professor of Integrated Product Manufacturing and the director of the Intelligent Systems Center at Missouri S&T.
Professor Ming Leu
Leu explains the importance behind developing metal 3D printing technologies saying, “A major benefit with this method is that it minimizes the time of product realization. It provides great advantages over conventional methods. With metal additive manufacturing, you can make parts of very complex geometry with internal features that can’t be made by conventional methods.”
The project has received about $6.5 million in funding, with $5 million going towards personnel and other expenses, and $1.5 million having been spent by Honeywell on specialized equipment. The equipment, which was loaned by Honeywell to the Toomey Hall at Missouri S&T for the project, will allow the team of researchers to conduct their tests and research. The research itself is based around four key objectives: predicting the properties of the 3D printed parts, controlling microstructures to achieve the desired properties, maximizing powder reuse, and increasing overall product sustainability.
“We look at how process parameters affect the mechanical properties of the manufactured part and how to control those parameters to achieve desired properties,” says Leu. “The laser’s power, the beam diameter, the traverse speed, the line spacing and the layer thickness all can affect the parts produced.”
Essentially, the project conducted by Leu and his team will comprise of five main tasks: powder characterization, material property characterization methods, temperature effects on material properties, controlling microstructure and mechanical properties, and additive manufacturing chemistry. The team will reportedly be using stainless steel 304L as their initial build material.
In terms of sustainability and lowering the cost of the technology, the team is also seeking to find a way to more efficiently reuse metal powder rather than only work with new raw materials. Currently, powder surrounding the additively manufactured part, which comes into contact with heat from the laser, may begin to degrade or clump, making it unsuitable to be reused in high quality parts. Missouri T&S’s research team is hoping to find a productive way around this challenge.
As more and more resources are put towards advancing additive manufacturing technologies, we are confident that the 3D printing industry will only continue to grow, further establishing itself as a more time and cost efficient, as well as sustainable manufacturing option.
Posted in 3D Printing Technology
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