Research Summaries

Back Low Temperature, Low Cost, Precision Metal Additive Manufacturing (M-AM)

Fiscal Year 2019
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department NPS Naval Research Program
Investigator(s) Phillips, Jonathan
Sponsor NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary Research will determine if a novel low temperature metal-from-metal-oxide technology, Reduction Expansion Synthesis (RES), can be adapted to the creation of high quality, precision metal parts using only a standard commercial plastic 3D manufacturing apparatus, and a low cost furnace. This could lead to the replacement of the present dominant M-AM technology, based on laser sintering of large (ca. 50 micron) metal particles, initial cost ~$100K, with a far simpler, far more precise technology based on RES; initial cost ~$2K. RES, a patented technology developed by the PI and NPS team, is already used to make metal thin(e.g. 1 micron) film coatings(e.g. Cr, Ni), precisely placed, from physical mixtures of metal oxide particles, and urea or petroleum gel. Once the easily made gel is placed, the part is simply heated in an inert environment for a few hundred seconds to ~800 C. New research shows the films formed from this simple process are void free, and of controlled thickness on a one micron scale. In contrast, current M-AM parts generally contain significant voids, and have a precision of order 50 micron. Such parts require ‘post process’ smoothing and sintering. Simple metal shapes will be created in two steps: i) filling voids in plastic 3D manufactured ‘molds’ with RES precursor compounds, ii) heating filled plastic part to ~900 C for a period of a few 100 seconds. It is already demonstrated that the standard plastics employed completely vaporize under these conditions, leaving only reduced metal. Second, direct production of shapes from the gel, followed by heating will be undertaken. In all cases the metal part will be examined for shrinkage, strength, smoothness, defect density, etc. using the plethora of technology including SEM, TEM, XRD, Instron, readily available on the same floor as the extensive 3D manufacturing capability of NPS MAE. Deliverables - Two or more: patent applications; published articles; MS theses and 3D shapes of interest to the sponsor.
Keywords
Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal