Refine
Document Type
- conference proceeding (article) (11)
- Article (10)
Has Fulltext
- no (21)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (21)
Keywords
Institute
Begutachtungsstatus
- peer-reviewed (7)
The mechanical properties of polymer parts built by Selective Laser Sintering are strongly related to the internal microstructure which differs with the applied production parameters. The paper focuses on the back tracing of the pore morphology of laser sintered polyamide-12 samples to the process parameters. Therefore, a data base is used which is supplied by a Round Robin initiative and includes mechanical tensile tests and the microstructural analysis of the pore morphology of several different sample charges built with different machines. The pore morphologies (porosity, pore density, pore shape and pore arrangement) measured by X-ray computed tomography are compared and discussed regarding the employed parameters and the resulting mechanical properties. The investigations point out that pore density is a superior indicator than porosity for mechanical issues. This is especially valid along the build direction since pore morphology has shown to be strongly anisotropic. Moreover, the analysis revealed that pore density is strongly affected by the process temperature, which is proved to be essential for the fabrication of mechanical robust parts using Selective Laser Sintering.
In this paper, the use of electrophotographic polymer powder transfer for the preparation of multi-material layers is discussed with respect to the application in powder bed-based additive manufacturing technologies as selective laser sintering (SLS). Therefore, the challenges of this task are considered verifying the critical process steps in order to develop a concept for an electrophotograhic laser sintering machine. On that basis, an experimental setup with a two-chamber design is realized which enables the investigation of the electrophotographic powder transfer at typical process conditions of SLS. Using this setup, transfer tests of polypropylene powder patterns were performed and qualitatively analyzed by photographic imaging. The results confirm the high potential of the application of electrophotography for multi-material powder deposition and show how a residual electrophotographic powder deposition can be achieved in general, which is independent from the already produced part height, in order to build up three-dimensional multi-material components.
The mechanical and microstructural investigation of polymer parts (polyamide 12) fabricated by Selective Laser Sintering as part of a Round Robin initiative is presented. The paper focuses on the microstructural analysis of the Round Robin samples and their evaluation regarding their effect on mechanical properties with respect to each other. Therefore optical microscopy on microtomed samples, X-ray computed tomography and Differential Scanning Calorimetry is used to determine the morphology of residual particle cores and of internal pores.
In former works, the optical material properties of different polymer powders used for Laser Beam Melting (LBM) at room temperature have been analyzed. With a measurement setup using two integration spheres, it was shown that the optical material properties of polymer powders differ significantly due to multiple reflections within the powder compared to solid bodies of the same material. Additionally, the absorption behavior of the single particles shows an important influence on the overall optical material properties, especially the reflectance of the powder bed. Now the setup is modified to allow measurements at higher temperatures. Because crystalline areas of semi-crystalline thermoplastics are mainly responsible for the absorption of the laser radiation, the influence of the temperature increase on the overall optical material properties is analyzed. As material, conventional polyamide 12 and polypropylene as new polymer powder material, is used. By comparing results at room temperature and at higher temperatures towards the melting point, the temperature-dependent optical material properties and their influence on the beam-matter interaction during the process are discussed. It is shown that the phase transition during melting leads to significant changes of the optical material properties of the analyzed powders.
The generation of multi-material components by laser beam melting (LBM) is a challenge which requires the invention of new coating devices for preparation of arbitrary powder patterns. One solution is the usage of vibration-controlled nozzles for selective deposition of polymer powders. Powder flow can be initiated by vibration enabling a start-stop function without using any mechanical shutter. In this report, the delivery of polymer powder by vibrating nozzles is investigated with respect to their application in LBM machines. Therefore, a steel nozzle attached to a piezo actor and a weighing cell is used in order to measure the stability and time-dependence of the powder mass flow upon vibration excitation with the usage of different kind of powder formulations. The results show that precompression of the powder inside the nozzle by vibration excitation is essential to realize a reliable start-stop function with reproducible discharge cyles and to prevent a initial flush of powder flow. Moreover, the use of different powder materials showed that mass flow is even possible with powders which are not optimized regarding flowability, but is readily enhanced with a factor of 2 to 3 by admixing Aerosil® fumed silica.
Simultaneous Laser Beam Melting of polymers (SLBM) allows the generation of multi-material components,consisting of different thermoplastic polymers, within one additive building process. Besides the common advantagesof conventional Laser Beam Melting (LBM), multi-material components built by SLBM can fulfill different productrequirements like different chemical resistances or haptic material properties within a single part. To achieve suchparts, different powder materials are deposited next to each other and preheated a few degrees below their meltingtemperatures by infrared emitters and laser radiation (λ = 10.60 μm), before in the last step the preheated powdersare molten simultaneously by an additional laser source (λ = 1.94 μm). In this paper, different polymer powders likepolypropylene (PP) and polyamide 12 (PA12) are used for the generation of multi-material specimens. By varyingdifferent building parameters according to a specified design of experiments, their influence on the part properties isanalyzed. Important building parameters are the intensity and the irradiation time of the laser beam used for meltingthe preheated powders. Besides using tensile tests to determine the tensile strength and the elongation at break, theaverage part height in dependence of the energy input is analyzed. The overall aim is to specify the correlationbetween different building parameters regarding the energy deposition on the resulting part properties.
Powder based Additive Manufacturing technologies offer huge potential for building parts with almost no geometrical restrictions, but both the process controlling as well as the part properties are strongly dependent on different material characteristics of the material, like the flowability. In this work, different weight percentages of nano-scaled silica dioxide particles (Aerosil®) are admixed to pure polyethylene and polypropylene powder and the resulting flowability is determined. Besides using the Hausner ratio as standardized value, the degree of coverage is introduced as a new characteristic to quantify the powder flowability. The degrees of coverage are compared to the Hausner ratios to allow a discussion and evaluation about the different characteristic values. Additionally, tensile bars consisting of polypropylene are generated to determine the porosity by cross sections and the mechanical part properties by tensile testing. As mechanical part properties, the tensile strength and elongation at break are determined and the effects of different powder flowability on these properties are analyzed.
The generation of multi-material components using Laser beam melting (LBM) is a challenge which requires the invention of new coating devices for the preparation of arbitrary powder patterns. One solution is the usage of vibration-controlled nozzles for selective deposition of polymer powders. Powder flow can be initiated by vibration even when using powders with low flowability. In this report, the selective deposition of polymer powder by vibrating nozzles is investigated with respect to their application in LBM machines. Therefore, a steel nozzle attached to a piezo actor is applied, whereas the nozzle itself features internal channels which allow the precise control of the powder temperature using heat transfer oil. The setup is used to study the influence of temperature on the powder mass flow. The results show that, next to the vibration mode, the temperature strongly influences the powder mass flow which is done by affecting the moisture and thus the particle-particle adhesion forces. This shows that a precise control of the powder temperature inside the nozzle is required in order to achieve a constant mass flow and thus a successful application of vibrating nozzles inside LBM machines.
By Laser Beam Melting of polymers (LBM), parts with almost any geometry can be built directly out of CAD files without the need for additional tools. Thus, prototypes or parts in small series production can be generated within short times. Up to now, no multi-material parts have been built by LBM, which is a major limitation of the technology. To realize multi-material parts, new mechanisms for depositing different polymer powders as well as a new irradiation strategy are needed, by which polymers with different melting temperatures can be warmed to their specific preheating temperatures and be molten simultaneously. This is achieved by simultaneous laser beam melting (SLBM). In the process, two different materials are deposited next to each other and preheated a few degrees below their melting temperatures by infrared emitters and laser radiation (λ = 10.60 µm), before in the last step the two preheated powders are molten simultaneously by an additional laser (λ = 1.94 µm). So far, multi-material tensile bars have been realized and analyzed regarding their boundary zone between both materials. The experiments showed that the temperature gradients in the boundary zone and along the building direction seem to be of great importance for the process stability and the resulting part properties. Therefore, a detailed analysis of the occurring temperature gradients during the process is needed to identify adequate process adjustments regarding the temperature controlling. To analyze the temperature gradients, thermocouples positioned inside the powder bed are used. By varying the temperature of the building platform, the influence of different temperature gradients on the resulting part properties is shown.
In this paper, first results regarding the realization of multi-material parts by Simultaneous Laser Beam Melting (SLBM) of polymers are presented. This new approach allows the layerwise generation of parts consisting of different polymer materials within one building process. Besides the typical advantages of additive manufacturing technologies, such parts can fulfill different product requirements concomitant and therefore could enlarge the overall field of application. The powder materials used for this paper are polyethylene (PE) and a polyamide based thermoplastic elastomer (TPE). After depositing the powder materials next to each other, infrared-emitters heat the lower melting polymer and a CO2 laser provides the preheating temperature of the higher melting polymer. In the last step, a thulium fibre laser melts the two preheated powders simultaneously. The realized specimens are characterized by cross sections and their tensile strengths are determined. Additionally, the new approach of the simultaneous energy irradiation is investigated using a Finite Element Analysis in order to gain a more profound process understanding. In that sense, the influence of the size of the exposure area on the reachable maximum temperatures inside that area was analyzed by the simulation and compared to experimental studies.