Development of the design and technology of extrusion of metal-polymer mixtures for the production of feedstocks

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the development of new equipment for the production of metal-polymer thread. 3D printing with metal-polymer thread is one of the advanced directions in the technology of manufacturing metal parts of complex shape. The proposed technology is an alternative to the currently existing metal injection molding (MIM) technology and selective laser melting printing technology. An important step in this work was to conduct computational experiments to determine the effect of screw rotation on the process pressure parameter and the design of the main assembly of the screw extruder. As a result of the research, the pressures on the metal-polymer composition were determined depending on the rotation speed of the screw. With a rotation of 30 rpm, the pressure reached 0.05 Pa and the maximum pressure was 0.18 MPa. The experiments were carried out in the CradelSFlow program. The computer calculation showed a margin of the screw strength coefficient k=1.8, and a maximum deflection of 2.8∙10–4 m, which meets the condition of static rigidity. To determine the correct value of the gap δ between the screw ridge and the extruder walls, an analysis of the rotor dynamics was carried out. The result of this study is the critical extruder rotation speed of 60 rpm at which the phenomenon of precession may occur. Amplitude-frequency characteristics ydin=7∙10–4 m. According to the results of the dynamic calculation, the screw dimensions were adjusted, the geometry was reduced by ∆=0.5 mm. The experiments made it possible to verify the optimal parameters of the technological process of metal-polymer mixture extrusion. The data obtained are important for the improvement and development of 3D printing technology for metal parts of complex geometric shape.