Metal Binder Jetting (MBJ)

© Fraunhofer IFAM
Turbine wheel made of 316L stainless steel – surface as sintered

Metal Binder Jetting is a powder bed based additive manufacturing process, also known as 3D-Printing. The Fraunhofer IFAM focuses on material and process development along the entire process chain of metal binder jetting, including printing and depowdering as well as debinding and sintering. Our powder analytics enables us to characterize the sintering activity and packing behaviour of the powder, which significantly influence the densification and shrinkage behaviour during sintering.The development of the binder and its residual-free degradation are also investigated at IFAM. For the selection of suitable sintering parameters, we rely on our analytical capabilities and decades of experience in metal powder injection moulding.

Several ExOne Innovent and Innovent+ systems, commercial sintering furnaces and analytical equipment are available for research and development purposes.



In Metal Binder Jetting, parts are build up by applying a powder layer (1) and locally printing an organic binder into each new layer (2) that causes adhesion of the powder particles. The binder is subsequently dried by a heat lamp (3). These process steps are repeated until the desired geometries are achieved. After curing the binder (4), the green part is cleaned of the loose powder (5).In a combined furnace process, the parts are debinded (6), by thermally degrading the binder and then sintered (7). The powder particles fuse together and the part densifies as well as shrinks to final dimensions.

As an alternative to sintering to full density, the green parts can be presintered and infiltrated with a low-melting metal.


Processable materials
Steels (optionally infiltratable)
Nickel-base superalloys
Cobalt alloys
Titanium alloys
Copper


Our offer
From material selection to the printing process, debinding and sintering to analytics, the process is performed, analysed and scientifically supported in-house. In detail we offer:

Support in component selection and production-oriented design
Comprehensive material and process development along the process chain
Material-specific binder development
Market studies and benchmarking with other AM technologies
Trainings and workshops on Metal Binder Jetting


Bastian Barthel
Phone +49 421 2246-169
bastian.barthel@ifam.fraunhofer.de
Dipl.- Ing. Claus Aumund-Kopp
Phone +49 421 2246-226
claus.aumund-kopp@ifam.fraunhofer.de


https://www.ifam.fraunhofer.de/e ... binder-jetting.html