增材制造金属零件抛光加工技术研究进展

金属增材制造在航空航天、医用植入等领域有良好的应用前景,但成型表面质量差,未经后处理加工无法满足高使役性要求,抛光加工是高性能金属增材制造技术链中的关键环节。概述了增材制造金属零件应用现状和生长过程固有的阶梯效应、球化效应、粉末粘附等特性,以及成型表面高粗糙度等形貌特征。在此基础上,重点综述了增材制造金属零件抛光加工中应用较广的电化学、激光、磨料流三种抛光技术的研究进展,以不同制造工艺、不同金属粉末材质、不同结构形式(多孔结构、高长径比流道等)的增材制造样件为主线,通过表面粗糙度、材料去除、表层残余应力、廓形精度保持性等技术指标,对增材制造金属零件抛光加工研究成果进行了归纳总结。最后展望了增材制造金属零件抛光技术的发展方向。     

Optimization of Binder Jetting Using Taguchi Method

Among several additive manufacturing (AM) methods, binder-jetting has undergone a recent advancement in its ability to process metal powders through selective deposition of binders on a powder bed followed by curing, sintering, and infiltration. This study analyzes the impact of various process parameters in binder jetting on mechanical properties of sintered AM metal parts. The Taguchi optimization method has been employed to determine the optimum AM parameters to improve transverse rupture strength (TRS), specifically: binder saturation, layer thickness, roll speed, and feed-to-powder ratio. The effects of the selected process parameters on the TRS performance of sintered SS 316L samples are studied with the American Society of Testing Materials (ASTM) standard test method. It was found that binder saturation and feed-to-powder ratio were the most critical parameters, which reflects the strong influence of binder powder interaction and density of powder bed on resulting mechanical properties. This article serves as an aid in understanding the optimum process parameters for binder jetting of SS 316L.     

Characteristics of laser aided direct metal/material deposition process for tool steel

Laser aided direct metal/material deposition (DMD) process builds metallic parts layer-by-layer directly from the CAD representation. In general, the process uses powdered metal/materials fed into a melt-pool, creating fully dense parts. Success of this technology in the die and tool industry depends on the parts quality to be achieved. To obtain designed geometric dimensions and material properties, delicate control of the parameters such as laser power, spot diameter, traverse speed and powder mass flow rate is critical. In this paper, the dimensional and material characteristics of directed deposited H13 tool steel by CO₂ laser are investigated for the DMD process with a feedback height control system. The relationships between DMD process variables and the product characteristics are analyzed using statistical techniques. The performance of the DMD process is examined with the material characteristics of hardness, porosity, microstructure, and composition.     

Preparation and selective laser sintering of nylon-12 coated metal powders and post processing

A dissolution–precipitation process was successfully developed to prepare nylon-12 coated carbon steel powders. The SEM and laser diffraction particle size analysis results show that the metal particles are well coated by nylon-12 resin; therefore, an effective method for preparing nylon-12 coated metal powders is provided. Green parts were formed from the coated powders by selective laser sintering (SLS) process, and when the nylon-12 content in the coated powder was 1.0 wt% and the applied laser energy density was 0.06 J/mm², the SLS green parts had sufficient strengths for features as small as 0.1 mm to be built and post-processed, and relatively high dimensional accuracy. The SLS green parts were post-processed by binder decomposition and epoxy resin infiltration, and the obtained epoxy-infiltrated parts have the dimensional errors in the X, Y and Z directions of −0.30, −0.32 and −0.25% respectively, and the bend strength, bend modulus, tensile strength and impact strength of 93.4 MPa, 14.7 GPa, 70.3 MPa and 12.4 MPa respectively.     

Three-dimensional printing of metal parts for tooling and other applications

Three-Dimensional Printing is a Solid-Freeform Fabrication process that creates parts out of powder by spreading layers into which binder is ink-jet printed to define the part geometry of that layer. By repetition of the process layer-by-layer, three-dimensional components of very complex geometry can be created. This paper describes key aspects of the application of Three-Dimensional Printing to the fabrication of metal tooling where surface finish, dimensional accuracy, wear resistance, and process complexity impose challenging constraints on materials selection and processing.     

适用于金属增材制造的球形粉体制备技术

金属增材制造技术作为一项革命性的先进制造技术,从20世纪90年代兴起并得到迅速发展,受到各国家的高度关注。原料是影响和制约增材制造零部件性能的关键因素之一。球形粉体由于具有良好的流动性和铺展性、以及较高的松装密度与压实密度等优异性能,是金属增材制造的理想原材料。本文针对球形粉体的雾化制备技术以及粉体的球化技术,详细总结了雾化和球化技术的相关原理、方法和技术特点,并针对金属增材制造对球形粉体制备技术的发展进行了展望。     

Effect of powder reuse on mechanical properties of Ti-6Al-4V produced through selective laser melting

Metallic powder reuse presents attractive economic and environmental advantages for direct metal laser sintering (DMLS). However, continuous recycling of powder raises concerns of powder quality and sintered part performance, and complicates process validation. Efforts to examine the mechanical response of parts built with reused feedstocks are increasingly common in the technical literature, but none have optimized process parameters in DMLS to control for changes in material properties. In this paper, titanium powder reuse was investigated with the objective of optimizing the additive manufacturing (AM) process for reuse. Virgin Ti-6Al-4V powder was cycled a total of eight times through conditions representative of industrial DMLS machines. A full 2³-factorial design of experiments (DOE) approach was employed to identify how parameter settings affect mechanical behavior, and include reuse as a process variable. The independent factors (laser power, laser speed, and hatch distance) did not significantly affect mechanical properties; however, measurements of ductility were found to be influenced by some interaction between the factors. These results were attributed to the narrow operating envelope which was required for successfully sintered specimens. Density and chemistry measurements further demonstrated no significant change with respect to reuse. The findings suggest that titanium powder can be reused up to eight times without any noticeable loss in strength or ductility.     

选择性激光烧结成形温度场的研究进展

选择性激光烧结技术与传统铸造工艺相结合,为快速制造某些难以用传统方法获得的铸件提供了有利途径.对于各种粉末材料在选择性激光烧结成形过程中温度场的模拟与预测,是合理选择其烧结工艺参数的基础.本文中综述了聚合物粉末、聚合物覆膜金属/陶瓷粉末和金属粉末在选择性激光烧结过程中的热物性参数变化规律及其相应的成形温度场分布,以利于激光选择性烧结各类粉末材料而精确成形零部件.     

Direct laser fabrication of thin-walled metal parts under open-loop control

Direct laser fabrication (DLF) is an advanced manufacturing technology, which can build full density metal parts directly from CAD files without using any modules or tools. The investigation on the fabrication of thin-walled parts of nickel alloy using open-loop DLF process is introduced in this paper. The experimental setup consisted of a CO₂ laser, a 3-axis CNC table, a coaxial powder nozzle and a powder recycler. The 3D-CAD file of a thin-walled metal part was converted into the STL file format and imported into software HUST-RP to generate ‘pseudo-random’ scanning paths of laser beam. The influence of process parameters on the build height of thin-walled metal parts was studied by 1–10 layered single-bead stacks of nickel alloy. The result shows that the interference factors which affect the build height of thin-walled metal parts occur randomly during the process. For open-loop DLF process, thin-walled metal parts can achieve much better shape quality if the process parameters are suitable. Multilayer single-bead walls were built up with different scanning velocity to obtain the optimal process parameters of thin-walled parts of nickel alloy. It shows that thin walls of nickel alloy with uniform height can be built up layer by layer in a certain range of specific energy. However, it is difficult to control the build height of complex thin-walled metal parts in an accurate manner just using optimal parameters. A special coaxial powder nozzle was designed in this paper. In a certain range, the deposition thickness of the nozzle is nearly linearly increased with increase in the standoff distance between the powder focusing point of the nozzle and the deposition substrate. By means of the nozzle, a novel method to control the build height of thin-walled metal parts using open-loop DLF process was introduced. The difference in build height of a thin-walled part can be compensated automatically in one or several layers during the process. It is proved that the build height of a thin-walled metal part can be accurately controlled in theory using the nozzle. A complex single-bead part of nickel alloy whose geometry was designed to be the well-known Chinese ‘FU’ was fabricated and explained in this paper. The result shows that the shape quality of the sample is quite good, and actual build height of the sample is 53.54 mm while the designed value is 54 mm.     

Rapid manufacture of Ni-based superalloy components by three-dimensional printing

The challenge to rapid manufacturing high performance metal components is how to consolidate the uncompressed powder preforms to full or near full density without shape distortion. A new approach developed by ProMetal was proposed, in which a bimodal powder, typically a coarse prealloyed powder blended with a fine metal powder was used to build green preforms by three-dimensional printing and then sintered at a temperature above the solidus temperature of the coarse prealloyed powder and below the melting temperature of the fine powder particles or the solidus temperature if the fine powder is a prealloyed powder as well. This approach was successfully applied to sinter Ni-based superalloy 718 preforms, which were built through three dimensional printinginto near full density.     

Metal powder bed fusion in high gravity

Many studies have focused on the stabilization of additive manufacturing (AM) in microgravity for its use in various space projects. Nevertheless, this paper presents a vital clue for innovating metal AM technologies from the perspective of high gravity. High-gravitational powder bed fusion has an excellent potential to address various challenges in AM, such as density enhancement, spatter suppression, and precise fabrication. This study summarizes an analogy among phenomena in different gravitational fields and establishes a combined machine for centrifuge and powder bed fusion. The results confirm the spatter suppression and fine-powder availability in high gravity, both theoretically and experimentally.     

Metal direct prototyping by using hybrid plasma deposition and milling

Rapid prototyping (RP), especially metal direct rapid prototyping, brings engineers a new model to fabricate parts more difficultly than conventional machining. Furthermore, the surface quality and the dimensional accuracy of the parts manufactured using the simplex metal direct prototyping or tooling approach are even lower than that of the conventionally machined parts. To overcome these deficiencies, this paper presents a new metal direct RP approach, called hybrid plasma deposition and milling (HPDM) using plasma deposition as an additive and conventional milling as a subtractive technique, which synthesizes the advantages of both processes. Compared with other metal-deposition ways, such as laser or electron beam deposition processes, the plasma deposition used in the current HPDM is the most economical one. Simultaneously, the precision of the manufactured parts is ensured by the compounding CNC process which assists to remove the staircase caused by the layered manufacturing principle and the allowance of the near-net shape deposited by plasma deposition. The initial results of the process development and the characteristics of the parts fabricated by this process are reported in this paper. Using a set of optimized process parameters obtained in this study, a group of metal parts, such as metal hollow vases, were trial-manufactured. The surface roughness R_z was obtained 2.32 μm and the dimensional accuracy was controlled within ±0.05% of the metal part. With these results obtained, the microstructure was then examined to prove the applicability of the HPDM process to direct fabrication of metallic prototypes and tools.     

Binder jet printing of tungsten heavy alloy

Tungsten heavy alloy powder was processed to make it flowable and of a suitable high apparent density for additive manufacturing (AM). The powder was successfully binder jet printed and sintered to high density. Material in the as-sintered condition was tested and passed all requirements of the ASTM B777 specification for tungsten heavy alloy. Specimens were binder jet printed and an initial assessment of the dimensional capabilities of the process was performed.     

激光微区烧结微成形技术研究

目前微小零部件的制造方法很多,激光微成形即为其中一种。介绍了在激光选区烧结技术的基础上,结合微成形特点开发的激光微区烧结成形技术。该技术可对金属粉末进行直接微区烧结成形,所成形的金属微型零件强度高,不需后续处理,大大节省了从原材料到最终实体的时间,并具有环境污染小、材料利用率高、成形速度快和效率高的特点。     

Powder recycling in laser beam melting: strategies,consumption modeling and influence on resource efficiency

Laser beam melting (LBM) is a powder-bed and laser-based additive manufacturing technology that is increasingly used for the production of metal components. For a sustainability assessment of a production technology, the global warming potential (GWP) can be used, which is commonly referred to as CO₂-footprint. Looking at the resource demand of LBM, material losses and powder recycling play a significant role. In the LBM build-up process, powder material is selectively solidified, generating the part layer-by-layer. The non-solidified powder material can be recycled, which is beneficial to the resource efficiency of the process. Due to considerations regarding powder quality degradation, the number of reuse powder cycles in industrial practice varies significantly, ranging from only one to more than several dozen cycles. Similarly, material losses during the process have shown to differ between LBM machines. However, previous approaches for LBM resource efficiency assessment lack a detailed representation of these two factors. In this study, two interacting models are introduced for the evaluation of the GWP of LBM parts. Firstly, a powder reuse cycle calculation model is described. Secondly, a LBM resource and energy consumption model based on the CO2PE!-methodology is put forward with a refined focus on powder recycling and material losses. The models are implemented and validated based on three LBM production use cases including the acquisition of resource and energy consumption data for three commercial LBM machines. GWP-impact values are used from the ProBas database, provided by the German Federal Environmental Agency. Based on the results regarding the three LBM use cases, the role of powder recycling and material losses on the GWP-impact of LBM during the production phase is discussed. The results show that the number of attainable powder reuse cycles lies around 35 cycles (ranging from 1 to 117 cycles) for the analyzed LBM production scenarios when applying the suggested powder recycling strategy. If powder is not recycled and only used once, more than 90% of the powder batch might be discarded. The volume-specific CO₂-equivalent of 0.175 kgCO₂eq/cm³ can be used as a rule of thumb for a quick estimation of the GWP for LBM parts made from Al-alloy or steel. Electric energy consumption constitutes for the largest share of GWP-impact, followed by the solidified metal powder and the occurring powder losses.     

Synchrotron-Based X-ray Microtomography Characterization of the Effect of Processing Variables on Porosity Formation in Laser Power-Bed Additive Manufacturing of Ti-6Al-4V

The porosity observed in additively manufactured (AM) parts is a potential concern for components intended to undergo high-cycle fatigue without post-processing to remove such defects. The morphology of pores can help identify their cause: irregularly shaped lack of fusion or key-holing pores can usually be linked to incorrect processing parameters, while spherical pores suggest trapped gas. Synchrotron-based x-ray microtomography was performed on laser powder-bed AM Ti-6Al-4V samples over a range of processing conditions to investigate the effects of processing parameters on porosity. The process mapping technique was used to control melt pool size. Tomography was also performed on the powder to measure porosity within the powder that may transfer to the parts. As observed previously in experiments with electron beam powder-bed fabrication, significant variations in porosity were found as a function of the processing parameters. A clear connection between processing parameters and resulting porosity formation mechanism was observed in that inadequate melt pool overlap resulted in lack-of-fusion pores whereas excess power density produced keyhole pores.     

A hybrid post-processing method for improving the surface quality of additively manufactured metal parts

A hybrid post-processing method that synergistically combines cavitation peening and electrochemical polishing to achieve superior surface quality of solid and lattice structured additively manufactured (AM) metal parts is analysed. The method enables surface strengthening of AM parts through plastic deformation caused by cavitation while simultaneously improving the surface finish through electrochemical dissolution of surface asperities. Compared to sequential processing, the hybrid process produces higher microhardness and comparable surface roughness in a single step. Results show that coupling of the physical-chemical effects accompanying cavitation and electrochemical reaction can enhance the cavitation intensity and dissolution efficiency in hybrid processing.     

Progress Towards Metal Additive Manufacturing Standardization to Support Qualification and Certification

As the metal additive manufacturing (AM) industry moves towards industrial production, the need for qualification standards covering all aspects of the technology becomes ever more prevalent. While some standards and specifications for documenting the various aspects of AM processes and materials exist and continue to evolve, many such standards still need to be matured or are under consideration/development within standards development organizations. An important subset of this evolving the standardization domain has to do with critical property measurements for AM materials. While such measurement procedures are well documented, with various legacy standards for conventional metallic material forms such as cast or wrought structural alloys, many fewer standards are currently available to enable systematic evaluation of those properties in AM-processed metallic materials. This is due in part to the current lack of AM-specific standards and specifications for AM materials and processes, which are a logical precursor to the material characterization standards for any material system. This paper summarizes some of the important standardization activities, as well as limitations associated with using currently available standards for metal AM with a focus on measuring mission-critical properties. Technical considerations in support of future standards development, as well as a pathway for qualification/certification of AM parts enabled by the appropriate standardization landscape, are discussed.     

Laser ultrasonic testing for near-surface defects inspection of 316L stainless steel fabricated by laser powder bed fusion

The laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) method of additive manufacturing (AM) is increasingly used in various industrial manufacturing fields due to its high material utilization and design freedom of parts. However, the parts produced by L-PBF usually contain such defects as crack and porosity because of the technological characteristics of L-PBF, which affect the quality of the product. Laser ultrasonic testing (LUT) is a potential technology for on-line testing of the L-PBF process. It is a non-contact and non-destructive approach based on signals from abundant waveforms with a wide frequency-band. In this study, a method of LUT for on-line inspection of L-PBF process was proposed, and a system of LUT was established approaching the actual environment of on-line detection to evaluate the method applicability for defects detection of L-PBF parts. The detection results of near-surface defects in L-PBF 316L stainless steel parts show that the crack-type defects with a sub-millimeter level within 0.5 mm depth can be identified, and accordingly, the positions and dimensions information can be acquired. The results were verified by X-ray computed tomography, which indicates that the present method exhibits great potential for on-line inspection of AM processes.