Abstract
Purpose Powder bed-based additive manufacturing (AM) is a promising family of technologies for industrial applications. The purpose of this study is to provide a new metrics based on the analysis of the compaction behavior for the evaluation of flowability of AM powders. Design/methodology/approach In this work, a novel qualification methodology based on a camera mounted onto a commercially available tap density meter allowed to assess the compaction behavior of a selection of AM materials, both polymers and metals. This methodology automatizes the reading of the powder height and obtains more information compared to ASTM B527. A novel property is introduced, the “tapping modulus,” which describes the packing speed of a powdered material and is related to a compression/vibration powder flow. Findings The compaction behavior was successfully correlated with the dynamic angle of repose for polymers, but interestingly not for metals, shedding more light to the different flow behavior of these materials. Research limitations/implications Because of the chosen materials, the results may lack generalizability. For example, the application of this methodology outside of AM would be interesting. Originality/value This paper suggests a new methodology for assessing the flowing behavior of AM materials when subjected to compression. The device is inexpensive and easy to implement in a quality assurance environment, being thus interesting for industrial applications.
Highlights
Additive manufacturing (AM) is attracting strong interest in many industries: production of end-use parts can be achieved within a few hours or days for an increasing number of applications.Powder bed fusion (PBF) of both polymers and metals is the family of additive manufacturing (AM) technologies that is closest to industrial applications: complex parts with a wide range of properties can be produced on demand and with much more design freedom compared to traditional machining
Powder bed fusion (PBF) of both polymers and metals is the family of AM technologies that is closest to industrial applications: complex parts with a wide range of properties can be produced on demand and with much more design freedom compared to traditional machining
3.1 Material selection The feedstock used for this work was chosen to cover a variety of powder properties and to show the suitability of the proposed methodology to study the flowability of AM materials
Summary
Powder bed fusion (PBF) of both polymers and metals is the family of AM technologies that is closest to industrial applications: complex parts with a wide range of properties can be produced on demand and with much more design freedom compared to traditional machining. The material range is still limited, and especially for selective laser sintering The interest of material suppliers to offer new polymer classes and metal alloys has grown. This is due to an overall PBF market growth, mainly driven by industrialization of this family of technologies, which can be estimated by. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
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