Application of metal additive manufacturing material extrusion in the production of tool inserts for polymer profile extrusion die surface roughness investigation

M. Kain*, P. Parenti, M. Calaon, D. B. Pedersen, M. Annoni, G. Tosello

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to conferenceConference abstract for conferenceResearchpeer-review

36 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The ever increasing availability of different metal additive manufacturing (AM) technologies, enhanced process capabilities, and material variations results in an expanding area of application. With different AM variants challenging usability, timeline and costs, application tests of technological variants within certain manufacturing setups is of interest to determine new applications and developments of existing processes. In the current work, material extrusion based metal AM is investigated for the production of tool inserts for polymer profile extrusion. For this particular manufacturing process, the surface topography is of large interest as the internal surface roughness contributes toward the final external surface of the extrudate product. Conventionally manufactured benchmark inserts were compared to AM inserts. The internal surface roughness of inserts were evaluated using silicone replicate technology. The conventionally manufactured insert had a surface roughness of Saconv = 374nm compared to a SametalAM = 5854nm for the AM insert. Extrusion of ABS was performed for each of the two inserts using water-cooling and constant extrusion process parameters. The subsequent surface roughness of the extrudates products were found to be SaconvExtrudate = 248nm and SametalAMExtrudate = 512nm respectively. This gives an indication that despite the high surface roughness of the AM insert, the influence on the final extrudates product is limited. However, additional post processing of the internal surface may provide a further reduction of the resulting extrudates surface roughness. In this work, successful testing and comparison of a conventionally manufactured tool insert and a metal AM tool insert has been performed, making it possible to determine the correlation between internal die surface roughness and resulting external extrudates surface roughness along with application feasibility of extrusion based metal AM for tooling on polymer profile extrusion. Future work will include an elaborate investigation of the correlation of internal die and external extrudates surface roughness.
Metal Additive Manufacturing, Tooling,
Original languageEnglish
Publication date2021
Number of pages1
Publication statusPublished - 2021
EventJoint Special Interest Group meeting between euspen and ASPE Advancing Precision in Additive Manufacturing - Ecole Centrale de Nantes, Nantes, France
Duration: 16 Sept 201918 Sept 2019

Conference

ConferenceJoint Special Interest Group meeting between euspen and ASPE Advancing Precision in Additive Manufacturing
LocationEcole Centrale de Nantes
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityNantes
Period16/09/201918/09/2019

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Application of metal additive manufacturing material extrusion in the production of tool inserts for polymer profile extrusion die surface roughness investigation'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this