Addictive Manufacturing and Copper

Abstract

Neste século, as necessidades dos consumidores estão cada vez mais desafiantes. A industria 4.0 está a revolucionar ambos os sectores de entrega e produção, eliminando a separação entre o digital e o físico. Existindo a possibilidade de ter produtos personalizados, a geometria vai permitir a criação de produtos que até agora não poderiam ser executados. Neste contexto, o Fabrico Aditivo surge como o pilar de sustentação para o desenvolvimento desta nova tecnologia. Estas tecnologias permitem obter um produto final criado a partir de pós.O processo de impressão mais frequentemente utilizado é a Fusão Seletiva por Laser (SLM). No entanto, esta técnica não permite obter produtos de alta qualidade, uma vez que, a rugosidade resultante é excessivamente elevada quando produzindo peças em cobre. Assim, surge o FDMet, um processo adaptado da Modelagem por Deposição Fundida (FDM) - produção de de filamentos poliméricos por extrusão).Este estudo pretende aplicar o princípio constructal para o fabrico de insertos de cobre através de FDMet, começando com a mistura dos pós e finalizando com a sintetização do inserto final.Este estudo demonstra que é possível produzir peças com elevada complexidade geométrica através de FDMet.########################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################

In this century, consumer needs are becoming increasingly challenging. The 4th industry is revolutionising both production and delivering sectors, blurring the lines between physical and digital. With the possibility of costume made products, new ideas will flourish with geometries that could not be made until now.In this paradigm, Addictive Manufacturing appears as a fundamental pillar sustaining this technological trend. It is composed by different step-by-step technologies that utilises powders to produce the final components.Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is the most common printing process of them all. However, regarding the mould industry, this technology cannot be used to obtain high quality inserts since the superficial roughness when processing copper is undesirably high. For this reason, Fusion Deposition Modelling (FDM), a polymeric filament-extrusion based technique has been adapted to process copper filaments.This study aims to apply the constructal principle to copper inserts through a complete FDMet process. Starting by mixing copper powders and ending up sintering the final inserts.This study shows that complex geometries can be produced using copper powder through a conventional 3D Printer, with a greatly reduced production cost in comparison with the existing solution.########################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################