A Comparative Investigation of Properties of Metallic Parts Additively Manufactured through MEX and PBF-LB/M Technologies

Abstract

In this study, the research on 316L steel manufactured additively using two commercially available techniques, Material Extrusion (MEX) and Laser Powder Bed Fusion of Metals (PBF-LB/M), were compared. The additive manufacturing (AM) process based on powder bed synthesis is of great interest in the production of metal parts. One of the most interesting alternatives to PBF-LB/M, are techniques based on material extrusion due to the significant initial cost reduction. Therefore, the paper compares these two different methods of AM technologies for metals. The investigations involved determining the density of the printed samples, assessing their surface roughness in two printing planes, examining their microstructures including determining their porosity and density, and measuring their hardness. The tests carried out make it possible to determine the durability, and quality of the obtained sample parts, as well as to assess their strength. The conducted research revealed that samples fabricated using the PBF-LB/M technology exhibited approximately 3% lower porosity compared to those produced using the MEX technology. Additionally, it was observed that the hardness of PBF-LB/M samples was more than twice as high as that of the samples manufactured using the MEX technology.

Reduction of Process Induced Porosity for Ultrafuse 316L through Parameter Optimization of Creality Ender 3 V2 and Makerbot Method X

“…Several studies have set out to determine optimal print parameters, varying nozzle temperature, infill strategy, build orientation, print speed, extrusion multiplier, line width, and layer height [12,13]. The effects of print parameters on shrinkage during processing [12,[14][15][16], geometric accuracy [16], density [12,17,18], tension tests [8,[13][14][15]18,19], optimization of post-processing [20], fatigue [21], hardness [14,18,22], and surface roughness [22] have been investigated, often comparing to samples produced from L-PBF [19,22], other MEX processes such as Desktop Metal and Markforged [21,22] or samples from conventionally manufactured 316L plate [8,14]. Typically industrial or commerical grade FFF printers have been utilized in previous research.…”

“…Typically industrial or commerical grade FFF printers have been utilized in previous research. Industrial printers such as the Apium P155 ($10,000-$25,000+) or commercial grade such as the Creatbot F430 [16], Lulzbot TAZ6 [20], Intamsys Funmat HT [19], Ultimaker S5 [12], Ultimaker 3 [13] ($2000-$10,000), or consumer grade such as Felix Tec 4 [15] and Prusa i3 [8,22] ($1000-$2000) have been utilized. At present, no studies have utilized any of the common hobbyist grade printers available for under $500.…”

“…Furthermore, it has been established that factors such as nozzle temperature have little effect on density [12]. The process has proved to produce 316L samples with tensile strengths similar to L-PBF or conventionally produced 316L but with a reduced yield strength [9,13] and approximately 2-5% porosity [8,12,14,17,22]. However, previous literature has highlighted that typical mechanical properties are reduced from those advertised by the manufacturer due to porosity [19].…”

Printing, Debinding and Sintering of 15-5PH Stainless Steel Components by Fused Deposition Modeling Additive Manufacturing

“…Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the pores in the green and sintered parts using micro-tomography confirmed that the optimized printing parameters were beneficial for the final microstructure. In addition, several researchers have also investigated the FDM process of other metallic or ceramic materials; for example, 316L [25][26][27], 17-4PH [28,29], copper [30,31], hardmetal [32], Ti6Al4V [33,34], tungsten heavy alloy [35], H13 [36], Al [37], 1.2083 steel [38], zirconia [39,40], etc. However, no studies on the FDM of 15-5PH stainless steel (15-5PH SS) materials were found in the available literature.…”

Investigation of Deformation Behavior of Additively Manufactured AISI 316L Stainless Steel with In Situ Micro-Compression Testing

“…Appropriate heat treatment can reduce dislocations and increase precipitates significantly, which provides the possibility to make printed 316L SS comparable to conventional technologies [27]. Compared with conventional material extrusion, laser powder-bed fusion can also provide lower porosity and higher hardness [28]. Inconel 718 parts manufactured with the machining process of LMD are also found to be different from the forged workpiece in chip geometry and bending moment [29].…”