Additive Manufacturing Technologies

Additive Manufacturing Technologies:

There are various Additive Manufacturing Technologies & few of them are as follows.

         1.Fused Deposition Modelling(FDM)
         2.
Selective Laser Sintering(SLS)
        3.
Vat Photopolymerization
        4.
Material Jetting
        5.Binder Jetting

Two of the popular additive manufacturing Technologies are presented below

Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM):

It is one of the Rapid Prototyping techniques which fuses or melts the material(similar to the extrusion Process) and deposits in the form of layer by layer in order to construct a component whose data had been taken from the cad(.stl) file.


Parts of Fused Deposition Modelling:

1.  Base(For Support)

2.  Filament (Plastic Material)

3.  Feed Rollers (Provide the proper amount of material)

4.  Supply Rollers (Supply plastic material at the beginning)

5.  Heating Elements (Heats the Plastic to a semi-liquid state)

6.  Nozzle or Extrusion Chamber



Working of Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM):

    In this process, the raw material is a plastic component, which is also called a filament in the FDM technique is drawn by means of rollers and is to be passed into the heating chamber by means of Feed rollers.

The plastic material is to be heated up to the formation of semi-liquid and is to be passed into the extrusion chamber.

In the Extrusion chamber, it has to be passed through  nozzle(similar to the extrusion process) and the product is obtained in the form of layers.

This is a detailed explanation of the working of the fused deposition modeling technique in additive manufacturing.

 

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS):

    Its also one of the RapidPrototyping technique which uses lasermachine for sintering the raw material to get the desired shape in the form of layer by layer. 

    Sintering means heating the raw material(Powder) so that it is melted and  converted into a thick layer called sintering.

    It is a process that creates a physical object from a digital design. The engineering design of a model can be prepared in CAD software. 

The design file(.stl) is then sliced Into small layers of equal thickness and Uploaded to an additive manufacturing machine.

 The above figure shows the sintering of the material layer by layer to form a final component.


·      Parts of Selective Laser Sintering:

1.  Laser
2.  
Scanner
3.  
Powder
4.  
Chambers with Piston Arrangement
5.  
Roller

·      Working of Selective Laser Sintering:

The manufacturing process begins once the thin layer of metal powder is spread across the platform. 

On the Platform, two chambers are  present with Piston arrangement. One piston is moving up and the other piston is moving down as shown in the figure.

 The First Chamber Piston pushes up the powder so that it is above the platform.

 Now roller will push and spread the powder to another chamber.

The Second chamber whose piston is pushed down so that the powder material has to be filled in the form of layer by layer.

Now, a heat source such as a laser or electron beam then notes the first layer of the 3D design, and the scanner can scan  the work region and post the laser so that the powder melts and deposits on the work platform in the form of layers. 

The platform is loaded again and the layer of metal powder is spread across the platform. 

The layering and melting process is then repeated until the process is complete. The metallic powder is removed and the  physical object is revealed or taken out from the powder and was cleaned so that impurities cannot be deposited.

 The parts produced by the Selective LaserSintering are lighter, stronger, and more adorable than traditional or Conventional parts.

 

 


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