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MEC454 - Polymer AM Research - Tagged

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24 views16 pages

MEC454 - Polymer AM Research - Tagged

Uploaded by

akharel1
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Additive Manufacturing –

principles and applications


MEC454
Week 6 – Polymer AM research

Candice Majewski (she/her)


[email protected]
• MAPP hub – recently completed
• Manufacture using Advanced Powder Processes
• £20 million research hub, (£10 million funding from EPSRC, £7
million industrial support, over £3 million from
collaborating universities)
• Overall aim to enable Advanced Powder Processes to live up to
their potential…
• See https://mapp.ac.uk/ for details

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• Advanced Polymer Sintering laboratory
• Core team of staff and students, plus ‘extras’!
• Major focus on powdered polymer Additive Manufacturing
• Laser Sintering, High Speed Sintering & others
• Process and material developments
• Understanding of interaction between process and material

Laser Sintering High Speed Sintering


Parts built by selectively scanning Required cross-section ink-jet printed
and sintering cross-sections of with a Radiation Absorbing Material,
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powdered material then sintered using an infra-red lamp
Some examples of what
we do...
• Interaction between material and process
• How do our powders and processes interact, and what effect do these
interactions have on the resultant parts?
• Need to process a wider range of materials, more efficiently, and
more repeatably...
• We can’t do this until we understand exactly what’s going on!

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• Interaction between material and process
• What’s stopping us from achieving the maximum properties the
material itself is capable of?

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• Characterisation
• Investigating porosity in High Speed Sintered parts
• Effects of processing parameters, orientation etc.
• Moving on to in-situ testing for more in-depth understanding

High energy

Porosity: 6.79%
(vol)

Low energy

Porosity: 32.08%
(vol)

Cuboid dimensions 7
• Characterisation
• Use of micro-CT for additional detail
• Dispersion and homogeneity of certain additives
• How to analyse the data and use it to the greatest effect

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• Characterisation
• Use of micro-CT for additional detail
• Dispersion and homogeneity of certain additives
• How to analyse the data and use it to the greatest effect

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• Characterisation
• Surface modification via variations in machine parameters

Mean Sq = 14.29µm Mean Ssk = 0.694 Mean Sq = 4.58µm Mean Ssk = -0.536
(Peak dominated) (Pore dominated)

With Finish Layers Without Finish Layers


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• Interaction between material and process
• Statistical modelling of Polymer Sintering material characteristics
• Large number of material characteristics which have some effect on
part properties
• Research to understand the exact contributions of each characteristic
• Can we predict part properties based on material?
• Even better, can we reverse this process and design materials with
certain properties?
Specific Degradation Beam
heat Laser
power speed
Conductivity Heat of Scan
fusion Scan spacing
Solidification count Laser
Thermal
Viscosity Density Melting
Build
Build height Layer
Physical thickness
Raw material parameters
Flow
characteristics Powder Process
Particle
size/shape temperature

Molecular Deposition
weight Part
Chemical Resultant part method orientation
properties
Moisture
absorption Density
Amorphous Mechanical
Surface v. crystalline Properties
Dimensional
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energy
accuracy Surface Microstructure
roughness
• Interaction between material and process
• For example, use of powder flow characteristics to predict powder
behaviour in the AM machine.
• No easy answer to this!

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• Improving functionality
• Plasma treatment for preparation of polymer Laser Sintered
Nanocomposite parts
• Potential for addition of nano-fillers to enhance properties, but
dispersion can be an issue
• Plasma treatment of nano-clays before dispersion has been seen to
have a positive effect on homogeneity

Standard mixing With plasma 13


• Improving functionality
• Introducing anti-bacterial properties into Laser Sintered parts
• Aim to reduce the spread of bacteria through surface contact
• Implications of through-part protection (e.g. cleaning complicated
geometries, scratching)
• Nylon-12 base polymer + silver phosphate glass
• Does it sinter?
• Is the silver-phosphate glass well-dispersed?
• What conditions does it work in?

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• Other projects
• Commercial work focused around optimising materials for use in our
processes
• E.g. work with Malvern Panlaytical and Netzsch, bringing together
multiple characterisation techniques to help us understand our
materials better
• Webinar on 13th November - https://events.malvernpanalytical.com
/W241113-MaterialCharacterizationPolymerPowders
• Expanding materials understanding into other areas (e.g. ceramics)
• Increased functionality – e.g. antibacterial behaviour
• Tribological studies of powdered-polymer AM parts
• Long-term behaviour (e.g. Ultraviolet ageing study – effects on aesthetics
and mechanical properties & investigation of underlying chemical changes)

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• Any questions?

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