Hybrid Metal/Polymer Filaments for Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) to Print Metal Parts

The exploitation of mechanical properties and customization possibilities of 3D printed metal parts usually come at the cost of complex and expensive equipment. To address this issue, hybrid metal/polymer composite filaments have been studied allowing the printing of metal parts by using the standar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied sciences 2021-02, Vol.11 (4), p.1444
Main Authors: Tosto, Claudio, Tirillò, Jacopo, Sarasini, Fabrizio, Cicala, Gianluca
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
3-D printers
3D printing
Additive manufacturing
Binder removal
Composite materials
Fabrication
Filaments
Fused deposition modeling
fused filament fabrication
Lasers
Mechanical properties
Metals
Polymer matrix composites
Polymers
Printing
Rapid prototyping
Raw materials
Scanning electron microscopy
Small business
Software
Spectrometry
Spectrum analysis
stainless steel
Tensile properties
Tensile strength
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Summary:The exploitation of mechanical properties and customization possibilities of 3D printed metal parts usually come at the cost of complex and expensive equipment. To address this issue, hybrid metal/polymer composite filaments have been studied allowing the printing of metal parts by using the standard Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) approach. The resulting hybrid metal/polymer part, the so called “green”, can then be transformed into a dense metal part using debinding and sintering cycles. In this work, we investigated the manufacturing and characterization of green and sintered parts obtained by FFF of two commercial hybrid metal/polymer filaments, i.e., the Ultrafuse 316L by BASF and the 17-4 PH by Markforged. The Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectrometry (EDS) analyses of the mesostructure highlighted incomplete raster bonding and voids like those observed in conventional FFF-printed polymeric structures despite the sintering cycle. A significant role in the tensile properties was played by the building orientation, with samples printed flatwise featuring the highest mechanical properties, though lower than those achievable with standard metal additive manufacturing techniques.
ISSN:2076-3417
2076-3417
DOI:10.3390/app11041444