Additive manufacturing plant based on powder bed fusion for polymers

• Subject Area: Production Technology
• Term: Funded in 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 418238538

Due to its specific properties, additive manufacturing has great potential in terms of several aspects. To use this potential, appropriate additive manufacturing processes are needed. For the production of end products made of polymers, the additive manufacturing process category of powder bed fusion has a great potential. The High Speed Sintering (HSS)- or Multi Jet Fusion (MJF)-process currently shows the greatest potential in terms of cost, time and quality. Due to the fact that this potential was recognized not long ago, there is still significant research and development needed. Implementation and application possibilities of the process must be explored in order to enable an effective use of these potentials. Furthermore, there is a need for research and development in terms of the production plant, to enable its use in an industrial environment. There is also still a great need to explore and develop the process itself respectively the layer-on-layer build process. The aim of the chair Manufacturing and Remanufacturing Technology is to research and develop knowledge and solutions for this by means of defined research projects. A processing of these research projects is only possible by means of a manufacturing plant, which uses the HSS- respectively MJF-process. Currently, however, there is no production plant of this category available at the University of Bayreuth.

• DFG Programme: Major Research Instrumentation
• Major Instrumentation: Pulverbettbasierte additive Fertigungsanlage mittels Schmelzen für Polymere
• Instrumentation Group: 2110 Formen-, Modellherstellung und gießereitechnische Maschinen
• Applicant Institution: Universität Bayreuth
• Leader: Professor Dr.-Ing. Frank Döpper