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Expert Insight

Powder DED - enabler for high product performance by Multimaterials and Functional Graded Materials

Additive manufacturing by powder based Direct Energy Deposition (DED) is able to produce parts with two or more different, coherently joint materials. This makes products possible, which combine contrasting characteristics tailored to specific areas of thermal and mechanical load.

On the one hand, Multimaterial (MM) enables air and liquid sealed material transitions zones in complex shaped geometries. On the other hand, Functional Graded Material (FGM) consists of seamless transition zones by varying the mixture ratio in between two added layers.

A promising field of application are tools and dies for injection molding and die-casting. There, high demand regarding fast and uniformly cooling during one production cycle requires mechanical strength and high thermal conductivity. MMs and FGMs provide these characteristics on the specific areas within a tool, where they are need.

In the same way, applications in Marine Technology are often challenge by corrosive seawater and mechanical loads occurring in harsh environments. We will come up with our latest research work for these industry sectors and show you on production samples what is possible applying powder based DED for realizing MMs and FGMs.

The speaker is:
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Alexander Mattes, Expert for Manufacturing Technology, Kiel University of Applied Sciences

Tags

  • Tool and die making