Metal Additive Manufacturing Conference 2018

Lithographic additive manufacturing (AM) technologies are based on the concept of photopolymerization and are known for their process inherent high precision and good surface quality compared to other AM techniques. In this work, metallic suspensions comprising a photoreactive binder and 316L powder (50vol%) were used as starting material. After printing, the obtained green parts undergo a subsequent thermal treatment similar to what is done in metal injection molding (MIM). After this debinding stage, the structure can be sintered to a relative density of 98.5%. By this approach highly complex parts made of 316L could be manufactured showing a good geometrical accuracy and very low surface roughness; the mechanical properties of the AM structure are comparable to conventionally manufactured 316L (tensile strength > 500MPa). Since the final part is developed by a classical sintering process, the same basic microstructure as in MIM is realized.