Existing metal additive manufacturing processes have been quite successful at producing components for aerospace and biomedical applications. However, metal AM technologies have struggled to gain more widespread market adoption due largely to extremely high equipment and powder costs, and relatively low production speeds compared with CNC machining. This talk will present the concept of multi-nozzle molten metal droplet jetting, or inkjet printing using molten metal as the "ink". Specifically, results from an 8-nozzle molten metal droplet jetting testbed will be presented in which material deposition rates in excess of 2,000 cm^3/hr have been demonstrated. This is believed to be the first system of its kind. A key differentiator with this new approach is that it scales to very high deposition rates without any loss of resolution due to the fact that each nozzle in the array jets relatively small (~500 micron diameter) droplets. Previous single nozzle metal jetting systems have generally been limited to alloys with melting temperatures below 1,000C (e.g. aluminum and zinc alloys). This presentation will include initial efforts to jet higher melting point steel and nickel-based alloys.
Learning Objectives:
Upon completion participants will understand basic principles of how multi-nozzle inkjet printing with molten metal works.
Upon completion participants will understand how inkjet printing with molten metals can be scaled to very high material deposition rates without any loss of feature resolution.
Upon completion participants will be able to describe the strengths and limitations of this new process.
