In the wide array of additive-manufacturing technologies (AM) available today, binder jetting stands on its own for the ability to combine the flexibility and part complexity typical of AM processes with a productivity rate unmatched by other AM technologies. 

Five projects with Pennsylvania universities have received funding through the Manufacturing PA Innovation Program to advance binder-jet 3D printing in collaboration with The ExOne Company. The five projects will help ExOne resolve challenges related to printing irregular and porous powders, as well as sintering and identifying parts that can best benefit from binder-jet 3D printing, among other projects. The company’s binder-jetting technology is a method of 3D printing in which an industrial printhead deposits a liquid binder onto a thin layer of powdered particles, layer by layer, until an object is formed. ExOne’s systems currently 3D print more than 20 metals, ceramics and composite materials.

The ExOne Company announced a material collaboration with Sandvik Additive Manufacturing, a division in the global engineering Sandvik Group. The material collaboration will focus on qualifying and optimizing Sandvik’s Osprey metal powders with ExOne’s binder-jetting machines. It will include studying powder and binder interactions; developing 3D machine process settings; and creating post-processing heat treatments for various materials, including stainless steels, tool steels and nickel alloys.

Metal additive manufacturing or metal 3D printing are terms that everyone in the metal-processing industry is seeking to understand. The “what” and the “how” are becoming clearer every day.

Some say we are on the cusp of another industrial revolution, namely the decentralization of manufacturing heralded by the growth of additive-manufacturing (AM) technology.

As additive manufacturing (AM), or 3D printing, continues to evolve, many challenges still plague this exciting new technology.