Experimental Study of Effective Parameters in 3DPrinting Process

Various factors such as powder particle size, binder viscosity, droplet size, binder saturation and printing layer thickness play an important role in the strength and surface quality of 3D Printing process. The objective of this research is to study the effects of two parameters of layer thickness and binder saturation level on mechanical strength,integrity, surface quality and dimensional accuracy in three dimensional printing (3D Printing) process. Various specimens include tensile and flexural test specimens and individual network structure specimens are made by the 3D Printing process under different layer thickness and binder saturation by use of ZCorp.’s ZP102 powder and Zb56 binder. Two printing layer thicknesses, 0.1, and 0.087 mm are evaluated at 90%and 125% binder saturation levels. Experimental findings show that under the same layer thickness, increment of binder saturation level from 90% to 125%, would result in an increase of tensile and flexural strengths of the specimens and decrease of dimensional accuracy and surface uniformity of specimens. On the other hand, under the same binder saturation conditions, increase in layer thickness from 0.087 mm to 0.1 mm, would decrease tensile strength and increase flexural strength. Also it gives better uniformity on the surface.