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Vibratory Powder Feeding for Powder Bed Additive Manufacturing Using Water and Gas Atomized Metal Powders Sinclair, Chad; Edinger, Ralf; Sparling, Will; Molavi-Kakhki, Amin; Labrecque, Chantal

Abstract

Commercial powder bed fusion additive manufacturing systems use re-coaters for the layer-by-layer distribution of powder. Despite the known limitations of re-coaters, there has been relatively little work presented on the possible benefits of alternative powder delivery systems. Here, we reveal a feeding technology that uses vibration to control flow for powder bed additive manufacturing. The capabilities of this approach are illustrated experimentally using two very different powders; a ‘conventional’ gas atomized Ti-6Al-4V powder designed for electron beam additive manufacturing and a water atomized Fe-4 wt.% Ni alloy used in powder metallurgy. Single layer melt trials are shown for the water atomized powder to illustrate the fidelity of the melt tracks in this material. Discrete element modelling is next used to reveal the mechanisms that underpin the observed dependence of feed rate on feeder process parameters and to investigate the potential strengths and limitations of this feeding methodology.

Item Metadata

Title
Vibratory Powder Feeding for Powder Bed Additive Manufacturing Using Water and Gas Atomized Metal Powders
Creator
Sinclair, Chad; Edinger, Ralf; Sparling, Will; Molavi-Kakhki, Amin; Labrecque, Chantal
Publisher
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Date Issued
2021-06-25
Description
Commercial powder bed fusion additive manufacturing systems use re-coaters for the layer-by-layer distribution of powder. Despite the known limitations of re-coaters, there has been relatively little work presented on the possible benefits of alternative powder delivery systems. Here, we reveal a feeding technology that uses vibration to control flow for powder bed additive manufacturing. The capabilities of this approach are illustrated experimentally using two very different powders; a ‘conventional’ gas atomized Ti-6Al-4V powder designed for electron beam additive manufacturing and a water atomized Fe-4 wt.% Ni alloy used in powder metallurgy. Single layer melt trials are shown for the water atomized powder to illustrate the fidelity of the melt tracks in this material. Discrete element modelling is next used to reveal the mechanisms that underpin the observed dependence of feed rate on feeder process parameters and to investigate the potential strengths and limitations of this feeding methodology.
Subject
powder feeding; additive manufacturing; water atomized; Fe; Ti-6V-4Al; electron beam additive manufacturing; vibrating feeder
Genre
Article
Type
Text
Language
eng
Date Available
2021-07-19
Provider
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
CC BY 4.0
DOI
10.14288/1.0400463
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/79027
Affiliation
Applied Science, Faculty of; Non UBC; Materials Engineering, Department of
Citation
Materials 14 (13): 3548 (2021)
Publisher DOI
10.3390/ma14133548
Peer Review Status
Reviewed
Scholarly Level
Faculty; Other
Rights URI
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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CC BY 4.0