Metal Additive Manufacturing Conference 2019

With the evolution of 3D printing of metals from the prototyping scale towards a serial production the different steps in the production chain have not only to be fully understood but also adjusted to each other and to the requirements of the final product. Among the different process steps, the post-processing of AM metal parts is a crucial element but nevertheless still an open issue at the industrial scale and up to now often neglected. The 3D-printed metal parts leave the printer, independently from the way of printing in terms of LBM or EBM, with a significant amount of support structures fixed to the part, adhering metal powder (partly sintered powdercake in the case of EBM) and a surface roughness that is about an order of magnitude too high for the technical application.While mechanical post treatment methods are mostly work, time and cost intensive they also cannot provide a proper finishing on sterically hindered parts and inner surfaces. Here electro-chemically based methods, such as the Hirtisation® process, provide a Technique that enables an integrated production process and additionally give an valid option for complete process automatisation. This presentation gives a report of the results of different electrochemically based surface treatments of 3D-printed metal parts and the corresponding results of mechanical testing. Beside the post-finishing process for support structure removal and surface roughness decrease, the possibilities and importance of protective coatings and corrosion protection will be discussed.