Labor Additive and Intelligent Manufacturing for Sustainability (AIMS)
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By simultaneous laser beam melting (SLBM), different polymer powders can be processed to multi-material parts, which offers the potential to enlarge the field of application for conventional LBM. In a SLBM process, a powder bed consisting of different polymers and therefore with different melting and crystallization temperatures is deposited. Besides the use of infrared emitters for preheating the lower melting polymer, a CO2 laser distributes the necessary preheating temperature of the higher melting polymer. In the last step, a thulium fibre laser distributes the energy necessary for melting the two preheated powders simultaneously. In order to analyze the temperature gradients of the process on the powder surface and in deeper layers, a high-resolution thermal imaging system and thermocouples are used.
In this paper, the use of electrostatic polymer powder transfer methods for the preparation of multi-material layers is discussed with respect to the application in Simultaneous Laser Beam Melting (SLBM). Therefore, the basic principles of the single process steps as well as the challenges in combination with SLBM are considered verifying the critical process steps. On that base, process concepts are developed which might enable the fabrication of high quality multi-material parts in the future. Moreover, since the polymer powders typically used with Laser Beam Melting differ strongly from common toners for e. g. electrophotographic printing, an experimental setup was built to study the powder transfer with an electrically chargeable transfer plate using polyamide 12 powder. The results of this study show that transfer of powders usable for Laser Beam Melting can be achieved, but depends on the electric field strength which is a function of the gap between transfer and substrate plate and the intermediate electric potential.
Abstract — In this report, the dry delivery of polyamide 12 (PA 12) powder for the preparation of powder layers in laser beam melting (LBM) is investigated. Therefore, an experimental setup was built which consists of a glass nozzle assembled on a piezo-electric actuator. By applying a sinusoidal voltage signal to the actuator, the nozzle is set into vibration mode which enhances the powder delivery through the nozzle. By using this effect, powder mass flow is controlled and a valve-like start and stop function is realized. In order to identify suitable process parameters, a broad range of vibration modes were investigated using two nozzles made from glass with different orifice diameters. Therefore, the vibration frequency and the voltage signal of the actuator were varied and the resulting mass flow was detected by a balance. It was found that both the frequency and the voltage signal affect the mass flow and its stability but with different impact. Moreover, powder lines were deposited with different velocities in order to characterize the setup regarding applicability for highly selective powder deposition for LBM.
By selective laser sintering (SLS), polymer powders are molten layer by layer to build conventional prototypes or parts in small series with geometrical freedom that cannot be achieved by other manufacturing technologies. The SLS process is mainly defined by the beam–matter interaction between powder material, laser radiation and different material characteristics by itself. However the determination of these different material characteristics is problematic because powder material imposes certain requirements that cannot sufficiently be provided by conventional measurement methods. Hence new fundamental investigation methods to determine the optical and thermal material characteristics like the thermal diffusivity, thermal conductivity, or the influence of different heating rates on the melting behavior are presented in this paper. The different analysis methods altogether improve the process of understanding to allow recommendations for the future process controlling.
In this report, the dry delivery of polyamide 12 powders by vibrating capillary steel nozzles is investigated and discussed regarding its potential for powder layer preparation in Laser Beam Melting. Therefore, a setup including a steel nozzle assembled on a piezoelectric actuator is presented, which enables the precise control over very small powder quantities by vibration excitation. An analysis reveals that the mass flow through the nozzle can be adjusted by the vibration modes in a certain range depending on the nozzle's specifications, whereas the vibration modes themselves show a complicated behaviour. Using a positioning system in combination with the vibrating nozzle, single-layer patterns consisting of polyamide 12 are produced and characterized regarding surface homogeneity and selectivity using a laser stripe sensor.