Additive manufacturing, bioprinting, 4D printing, and additive manufacturing procedures are plentiful in the US and across the world. However, some of the systems aren’t earlier as popular but are true substations of digital invention.
Kentucky-based Somerset Community College offers two major universities and four hubs. It has stated that their 3D printing program finished the successful additive manufacturing of several 316L stainless steel metal pieces. This is on several desktop 3D printing machines that cost just $600.
Delivering cost-effectiveness and convenience to their learner base in a special technique, the SCC AM faulty and staff has started the system with many FDM 3D printing machines. The machine cost below $450 each.
They went on with customization as well as updating the devices to include metal filament extrusion. This is with metal-infused filaments offered by Virtual Foundry and BASF. Also, they changed the 3D printing machines for enhanced build base adhesion. Although normal problems like reduction had to be valued, pieces were quickly 3D printed.
“This project is one of the first applications where fully metal parts that were 3D printed on a sub $600 desktop printer have been successfully welded together using conventional welding techniques,” said the SCC team in their past press statement.
“SCC’s process is based on Bound Metal Additive Manufacturing (BMAM), predicted by researchers to be one of the fastest-growing methods of additive production over the next several years.”
SCC solicited help for the de-binding and sintering procedures operating with DSH Technologies. In the last stage of manufacturing and post-processing, superior Welding Professor, Karl Watson of the SCC Welding Department, and his crew acted their magic’ utilizing Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW) on 6 specimens, including fillet and channel welds.
The completed pieces have not shown any discrepancies despite some experiments revealing hardness costs somewhat less than stock 316L. Stainless materials welding also produced higher degrees of heat distribution than normal. This is according to Watson.
“The welds flowed very smoothly and we had very good penetration control,” stated Watson. “Because of the nature of 3D printing and research we have seen around the concept of welding such parts, I expected to see more porosity in the weld, but that wasn’t the case with these specimens at all. I am looking forward to doing some bend tests to determine the potential malleability as well as welding other samples using SMAW, GMAW, and FCAW.”
