Untersuchung der Materialalterung bei pulverbasierten Schichtbauverfahren

Abstract

Additive, powder based manufacturing technologies, such as selective mask or laser sintering allows manufacturing of complex parts without tools and forms. Due to the high temperature during processing, a physical and thermo-oxidative degradation of the used plastic powder occurs. The unmolded material in the building chamber, the so-called partcake, can be removed after building from the finished component and used for another process. To realize reproducible part properties it is necessary to prepare (“refresh”) partcake powders. In this presentation findings to the degradation behavior of polymer powders are shown. In a model experiment the building process is adjusted and different degradation lev-els of PA12-powders are generated. Particular attention was paid to the influence of a material pre-treatment. Aged polymer powders were analyzed with physical and thermoanalytical methods with regards to their process relevant material properties.