The Development Of Metal Binder Jet Printing For Mass Production Applications

Metal Binder Jet (MBJ) printing is maturing as a sinter based additive manufacturing process for mass production applications, which inherently demand high product quality and sufficient process economics to provide a sustainable component production solution. Building on established powder metallurgy technologies, especially metal injection moulding (MIM), where the de-binding and sintering knowledge, as well as the embedded furnace capacity to facilitate the successful adoption of MBJ printing. Similarly, the range of fine alloy powders available for MIM have been adapted for MBJ, with some modifications to the powder size distribution, including multi-modal distributions, to aid the layer-by-layer printing process by enhancing physical powder properties including flow characteristics, powder density and bound, or green, material density. Reducing shrinkage with enhanced dimensional tolerances and increased resistance to distortion & slumping. This research provides and update on the industrialisation of MBJ, based on process control parameters, statistics and metal powder developments.