The Master Sintering Curve And Its Application On A Dual Phase Steel Produced By Metal Binder Jetting

The Master Sintering Curve is a useful tool to compare different sintering profiles regarding their effect on the material shrinkage, especially for fine powders. This is reached by the stepwise contraction of sintering temperature and sintering time to a common sintering parameter and its sigmoidal correlation to the densification parameter as metric for the sintering response. The underlaying sintering kinetics are investigated in terms of its activation energy. Similar to Metal Injection Molding, Metal Binder Jetting is a two-stage Additive Manufacturing process which is characterized by its huge material shrinkage during the sintering to reach components’ final geometry and density. A new developed dual phase steel, which can be tailored for a variety of strength|ductility combinations, was characterized by dilatometry sintering trials and a subsequent generated Master Sintering Curve. Due to its printing texture the resulting material shrinkage exhibits an anisotropic behavior which must be considered.