The future development trend of metal 3D printing

Since the birth of 3D printing, for a long time, many people have been discussing whether 3D printing will replace CNC machining, sheet metal manufacturing and other processes in the future. In fact, this is almost impossible, at least unlikely for a long time in the future. Judging from the current development trend, 3D printing has formed an effective combination with CNC processing and sheet metal manufacturing, which makes up for the shortcomings of these two processes in terms of molding limitations.

Sheet metal processing is widely used in electrical and electronic, automotive, telecommunications, medical and other industries. Sheet metal is the skeleton that supports and shapes products, such as cars, computers, or mobile phones. The design and manufacture of sheet metal parts is becoming a key stage of new product development, and its trend is diversified, small-batch production. Metal 3D printers can help simplify this process and reduce costs.

In the sheet metal manufacturing process, various molds are often used. Taking automobile sheet metal parts as an example, various molds such as punching dies, cutting dies, forming dies, separating dies, stamping dies, bending punches, etc. are used. Manufacturing molds are expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, it is not suitable for the production of small batches of sheet metal parts.

Therefore, when manufacturing sheet metal parts in small batches, many sheet metal factories use a combination of laser cutting and CNC bending technology. This process does not require molds, is economical, has a short cycle, and is suitable for the rapid production of simple structure plates. But for some special-shaped sheet metal parts, nothing can be done.

At this time, 3D printing is needed. A domestic car seat manufacturing company needed to produce a set of newly designed seat prototypes within a week, but the supporting molds were still in production. In addition, this set of seats consists of 78 pieces, with a thickness of 1.5 to 2.5 mm. Most parts have ribs and protrusions. Therefore, CNC machining is not suitable. So they used a 3D printer. In another use case, a machine manufacturer wanted to produce a muffler consisting of four parts, with a uniform shell thickness of 0.73 mm and a uniform thickness of the middle structure area of 0.6 mm.

The metal plate structure of these four parts is very complicated and cannot be manufactured by cutting and bending. Because of its thin wall thickness, it cannot be manufactured by milling. So there are only two options, one is stamping and the other is 3D printing.

Stamping has the advantages of high precision and high realization of design functions, but the mold production cycle is long and the cost is high. The metal 3D printing can be delivered in only 3 days, and it can also fully realize the design function. Nowadays, as products become more and more diversified, the demand for diversity and small batches in the processing of parts continues to increase. Therefore, many manufacturers generally believe that a comprehensive production model combining sheet metal manufacturing, CNC processing and 3D printing will be one of the mainstream manufacturing models in the future.

Overview of 3D printing powder

3D printing powder is the reduction of metal powder into fine particles. 3D printing metal powder is the main basic material for most 3D printing processes used to produce metal parts. 3D printing (3DP) is a rapid prototyping technology, also known as additive manufacturing. It is a technology based on digital model files that uses bondable materials such as powdered metal or plastic to build objects by printing layer by layer. The characteristics of the metal powder determine the type of 3D printing process. The performance of the powder depends on its production method, which may result in different particle morphology and purity.

Application of 3D printing powder

3D printing is usually realized by material printers using digital technology, usually used for model making in the fields of mold manufacturing, industrial design, etc., and then gradually used in the direct manufacturing of certain products, and some have been printed using this technology. This technology has been used in jewelry and footwear, industrial design, architecture, engineering construction (AEC), automotive, aerospace, dental and medical industries, education, geographic information systems, civil engineering, guns and other fields.

Different 3D printing equipment and molding processes require different particle size distributions. At present, the commonly used powder size range for metal 3D printing is 15-53μm (fine powder), 53-105μm (large size), and in some cases, it can be widened to 105-150μm (larger particles).

The choice of metal powder particle size for 3D printing is mainly based on metal printers with different energy sources.

For printers that use laser as energy source, because of its fine focus, fine powder is easy to melt, it is suitable to use 15-53μm powder as consumables. The powder supply method uses electron beam as energy, which is more suitable for melting coarse powder, suitable for the use of -105μm coarse powder.

For coaxial powder feed printers, powders with a particle size of 105 to 150 microns can be used as consumables.

3D printing powder price

The price of 3D printing powder will vary randomly with production costs, transportation costs, international conditions, exchange rates, and the price of 3D printing powder. Tanki New Materials Co., Ltd. aims to help various industries and chemical wholesalers find high-quality, low-cost nanomaterials and chemicals by providing a full set of customized services. If you are looking for the price of 3D printing powder, please feel free to send an inquiry to get the latest price of 3D printing powder.

3D printing powder supplier

As a global 3D printing powder supplier, Tanki New Materials Co., Ltd. has extensive experience in the performance, application and cost-effective manufacturing of advanced engineering materials. Focus on metal 3D printing powders, such as nickel-based superalloy powder, cobalt alloy powder, titanium alloy powder, aluminum alloy powder, ferroalloy powder, stainless steel powder, etc. If necessary, please email or click on the desired product to consult the price.

The company has successfully developed a series of powder materials (including oxides, carbides, nitrides, single metals, etc.) high-purity targets, functional ceramics and structural devices, and provides OEM services.