Analysis of the Influence of Different Flowability on Part Characteristics Regarding the Simultaneous Laser Beam Melting of Polymers

AbstractPowder based Additive Manufacturing technologies offer huge potential for building parts with almost no geometrical restrictions, but both the process controlling as well as the part properties are strongly dependent on different material characteristics of the material, like the flowability. In this work, different weight percentages of nano-scaled silica dioxide particles (Aerosil®) are admixed to pure polyethylene and polypropylene powder and the resulting flowability is determined. Besides using the Hausner ratio as standardized value, the degree of coverage is introduced as a new characteristic to quantify the powder flowability. The degrees of coverage are compared to the Hausner ratios to allow a discussion and evaluation about the different characteristic values. Additionally, tensile bars consisting of polypropylene are generated to determine the porosity by cross sections and the mechanical part properties by tensile testing. As mechanical part properties, the tensile strength and elongation at break are determined and the effects of different powder flowability on these properties are analyzed