Put up-processing types an vital stage of the metallic additive manufacturing workflow. Encompassing plenty of distinct strategies, metallic AM post-processing could contain fundamental AM procedures like assist elimination, process-agnostic procedures for production-level AM corresponding to half sorting, and process-specific procedures corresponding to debinding. The variety of phases required for metallic AM post-processing relies on the kind of AM course of, the fabric, and the half itself.
Beneath is a non-exhaustive checklist of the most typical post-processing strategies deployed following metallic additive manufacturing, together with a few of the main corporations offering options for every approach.
Powder Removing: Solukon
Powder elimination or depowdering is a important stage of post-processing for LPBF and different types of metallic additive manufacturing that use powder as feedstock. Extra powder should be eliminated following half fabrication so as to clear the half, get rid of security dangers, and seize powder for re-use.
An unbiased powder elimination system makes use of a mix of half rotation, vibration, and compressed air to make sure full elimination. For reactive metallic powders like titanium, an inert fuel system can also be required to forestall the chance of explosion.
A frontrunner in powder elimination options is Germany’s Solukon Maschinenbau GmbH, which makes a speciality of automated depowdering. Solukon has labored with corporations like Siemens to develop clever powder elimination for extremely complicated elements with deep channels and different sophisticated options. Solukon’s best-known methods are these within the SFM-AT vary, which supply options corresponding to automated 2-axis rotation, powder lock, vibration with controllable frequency, glove ports for handbook depowdering with compressed air or inert fuel, and handbook joystick management. The corporate—as we’ll see in additional element on this eBook—has additionally simply launched a brand new system meant for mid-sized half powder elimination, the SFM-AT350/-E.
Help Removing: Rivelin Robotics
Help elimination is a difficult and labor-intensive stage of post-processing for metallic AM, notably at susceptible thin-walled sections of a component. Help elimination usually includes chopping the half from the construct space with a bandsaw earlier than utilizing smaller handbook instruments to take away helps from the floor of the half. Due to the time and labor required for assist elimination, environment friendly and minimal placement of helps is a vital space of DfAM.
Automation of the assist elimination course of is a growing space of metallic AM that can profit AM manufacturing in the long run. One firm growing applied sciences on this space is UK-based Rivelin Robotics, which makes use of “state-of-the-art sensors and processes” and robotic arms to hold out metallic AM assist elimination with a 10-fold discount in operational value. Rivelin’s NetShape Robotic counts GKN Aerospace and the British Ministry of Defence amongst its customers.
Debinding and Sintering: Elnik Methods
AM processes like binder jetting and metallic extrusion, in addition to non-additive processes like metallic injection molding (MIM), require post-processing steps like debinding and sintering to take away non-metal binder materials and strengthen the metallic construction that is still.
Within the binder jetting course of, the AM system deposits a liquid binder onto metallic powder to manufacture a metallic half. It’s sooner than processes that sinter or soften the metallic powders. Nevertheless, the binder materials should be faraway from the “brown” metallic elements throughout post-processing utilizing warmth, solvents, water, and so forth. Debinding is adopted by sintering in a furnace at a temperature just under the metallic’s melting level, fusing the metallic particles and leading to a dense metallic part.
A frontrunner in debinding and sintering know-how is New Jersey’s Elnik Methods and its sister firm DSH Applied sciences. With greater than 50 years of expertise within the business, Elnik supplies world-leading first-stage debinding methods and second-stage debinding and sintering furnaces. In 2023, Elnik partnered with HP to offer a sintering resolution for HP’s metallic additive manufacturing methods.
Materials Dealing with: Volkmann
Materials dealing with in metallic AM will be thought-about each a pre-processing and post-processing stage. Any materials dealing with course of should prioritize security and cleanliness in addition to environment friendly supply to and from AM methods, defending operators from publicity to powders. An built-in materials dealing with system could have some overlap with a powder elimination system.
The fabric dealing with stage of post-processing can contain drying of AM powders, (automated or handbook) filling of AM methods, used powder elimination from the AM system, sieving of used powder, and different steps that can fluctuate relying on the kind of metallic AM know-how being deployed.
In 2023, metallic AM chief EOS partnered with fellow German firm Volkmann to offer an automatic, scalable, closed-loop metallic powder dealing with resolution appropriate for as much as six EOS M L-PBF additive manufacturing methods. With options like computerized refill, drying and a central powder dealing with system, the collectively developed system can present 24/7 totally computerized powder dealing with.
Half Identification and Sorting: AM-Circulate
Manufacturing-grade metallic AM carried out at scale requires post-processing steps to establish and type completed elements, as can be required in conventional meeting line manufacturing processes. Probably the most environment friendly methods for identification and sorting at manufacturing scale use types of machine imaginative and prescient to robotically perform the method.
Trade 4.0 half identification and sorting methods usually embody a machine with optical capabilities for half recognition, a system of conveyor belts for sorting elements into totally different classes, and non-compulsory parts corresponding to packaging machines, high quality inspection methods, and pick-and-place robots.
A frontrunner in additive manufacturing half sorting is AM-Circulate of the Netherlands, which supplies a lot of modular identification, sorting, and manufacturing unit administration options—together with its AM-Imaginative and prescient, AM-Logic, and AM-Kind machines—which use the corporate’s cutting-edge machine imaginative and prescient and AI know-how. Its customers embody automotive big BMW, which reportedly halved the time required for AM half sorting after putting in an AM-Circulate resolution.
Measurement and Inspection: Theta Applied sciences
For AM manufacturing of end-use elements, measurement and inspection is a vital post-processing stage. For dimensions and tolerances, normal tools like CMMs could also be used. Nevertheless, different applied sciences are required for inside testing.
Buyer calls for for measurement and inspection could also be larger with AM than with extra metallic manufacturing applied sciences like casting and machining. AM additionally differs from such applied sciences in that metallic elements can have quite a lot of inside complexity, with partly hole sections, channels, and different inside options. Particular non-destructive testing strategies are required for inside half inspection.
A specialist in NDT of AM elements is UK-based Theta Applied sciences. Theta’s inspection tools—demonstrated within the cutting-edge RD1-TT system—leverages nonlinear resonance know-how to detect inside flaws in AM elements utilizing sound waves, rapidly offering a move/fail take a look at outcome for metallic elements. It has been efficiently used to confirm metallic additively manufactured valves in addition to non-AM elements like turbine blades.
Warmth Remedy: Quintus Applied sciences
Elements made utilizing applied sciences like LPBF profit from warmth remedy that may scale back half porosity, take away imperfections and inside stresses, and improve power. Three frequent warmth remedies for metallic AM elements are resolution remedy, stress relieving, and sizzling isostatic urgent (HIP).
Quintus Applied sciences of Sweden makes a speciality of HIP applied sciences, primarily for sheet metallic fabrication but in addition for metallic AM post-processing. Appropriate industries for post-processing tools embody aviation, nuclear, and medical, the place high quality necessities for metals are particularly excessive. The corporate, whose HIP options have been used to enhance elements like titanium implants and automotive parts, has collaborated with AM leaders corresponding to SLM Options.
Extra about post-processing for additive manufacturing will be present in VoxelMatters’ AM Put up-Processing Focus 2024 eBook.