Authors:
Lea Reineke (1), Regina Schlegel (1), Dr. Sebastian Boris Hein (1)
1- Fraunhofer IFAM, Bremen, Germany
Abstract:
Metal Binder Jetting (MBJ) has an increasing attention in Additive Manufacturing because of its serial production potential. The aim of this work is to get a better understanding of the powder-binder-interaction for better process control and consequently a reduction in the number of iteration stages in material-specific process development, which saves costs, effort as well as material resources and printing capacity. Depending on the binder characteristics, the equilibrium saturation and wetting behavior changes. A better understanding of binder viscosity and surface tension on the powder-binder-interaction will improve the part quality. A suitable parameterization of the MBJ printing processes for specific powder-binder combinations, based on the binder and powder characteristics as well as the powder-binder interaction will improve the part density, accuracy and surface quality. The results show that, depending on the binder characteristics, the equilibrium saturation and wetting behavior changes. A higher surface tension seems to cause a higher equilibrium saturation and a lower saturation rate. The effect of the surface tension on the initial wetting time was overlaid by the effect of the surface chemistry. A higher viscosity leads to a significant higher initial wetting time on the powder bed surface, significant higher equilibrium saturation and a significant lower saturation rate. The relationship between wetting behavior and printing parameters as well as the effect of drying and droplet impact must be investigated further in subsequent studies.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59499/EP246233737
