Towards Multi-Material Flash Powder Sintering

Abstract

High speed sintering is a novel additive manufacturing technique consisting in sintering powder materials through infrared radiation instead of using an expensive laser technique like in its predecessor, Selective Laser Sintering; which makes it less expensive and more efficient in terms of manufacturing time. In this master’s thesis, first results regarding the printing of multi-material parts with a test bench printer prototype based on High Speed Sintering technique and manufactured within the scope of this project for that purpose, are presented. Nowadays the additive manufacturing market focus mainly in one single type of material: Nylon 12; leaving the market in need of new materials for the actual demanding technology. A first research into potential polymer powders to be used in this process as well as a trade-off of their possible combination is carried out. Finally multi-material parts of Polyamide 12 and Thermoplastic Polyurethane are obtained and characterized through various tests to know its properties and the behaviour across their interface of this new functionally graded material. The results showed that the multi-material part tensile strength stays at the same value or slightly below the value of the material with less tensile strength forming the part. The interface between the materials is strong and these materials show a good sintering level for the test bench parameters selected.