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3D extrusion printing of 304 stainless steel/polypropylene composites and sintering process optimization

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Abstract

Screw extrusion 3D printing in the low-cost preparation of high-quality metal products, which offers an edge over fused deposition molding (FDM) and laser-based additive manufacturing. In this study, spherical 304 stainless steel (SS304) micronized powder and polypropylene (PP) pellets were used as raw materials to manufacture composite samples of SS304 with a mass fraction of up to 90 wt%. After high-temperature heat treatment, metal samples with good qualities were obtained. The influence of 3D printing paths and heat treatment processes on the microstructure and mechanical properties of printed parts were studied. The results reveal that the samples printed using 27°/152° cross paths achieved a relative density with 95.78% and a tensile strength with 484 MPa after 6 h of sintering at 1280 °C at a pre-debinding rate with 60%. The overall performance is on par with components created using metal injection techniques (MIM), and this work provides the novel proposals for the production of metal parts using affordable 3D printing.

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Availability of data and materials

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [Zhixiang Li], upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Project under Grant No. 2021YFB3701500, the Science and Technology Service Network Initiative of Chinese Academy of Sciences under Grant No. KFJ-STS-QYZD-2021-10-002, and the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. LZ22E030003.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, 66 Waliu Street, Taiyuan, 030024, Shanxi, China

    Teng Xu & Yaqiong Ge

  2. Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Additive Manufacturing Materials, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology & Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, China

    Teng Xu, Fei Long, Yongqi Liang, Haiqing Zhang, Shaoqi Shi, Yuchuan Cheng, Gaojie Xu & Zhixiang Li

  3. Department of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo, 315100, China

    Fei Long

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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis: TX, YL, HZ, and SS; writing—original draft preparation: TX and FL; writing—review and editing: YC, ZL, and YG; funding acquisition: ZL and GX. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zhixiang Li or Yaqiong Ge.

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Xu, T., Long, F., Liang, Y. et al. 3D extrusion printing of 304 stainless steel/polypropylene composites and sintering process optimization. Appl. Phys. A 129, 285 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-023-06470-y

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