Metal Additive Manufacturing Conference 2018

Extrusion based additive manufacturing using the base of Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) is one of the very promising technologies for fast and cost effective production of 3D shaped metal parts. With this technology a green body is formed with high filling content of metallic powder. In this study we investigate the commercially available co-extruded filament by BASF, UltrafuseX 316L. The surfaces of the printed bodies were kept in original condition and compared with ground to low roughness before debinding. The debinding step was performed in catalytic debinding furnace followed by a sintering study in hydrogen atmosphere. We did systematically investigate the influence of the various process parameters on the final sintered part geometry and properties to give a base on future design rules for this process. Microstructure, porosity, surface structure and roughness as well as dimensional changes of the sintered bodies were investigated and compared. By use of this 3D printing techniques stainless steel parts (and in future further metals and even ceramics) with innovative geometries are accessible, which is briefly discussed. ​