Additive manufacturing and characterization of metallic bronze materials

Additive manufacturing has now entered our lives and has become an accessible technology. Additive manufacturing, which started with the production of polymer parts, enabled the production of metal parts thanks to the use of high-energy laser sources. Nowadays the most common method used in the production of metal parts by the additive method is selective laser sintering. However, the biggest disadvantage of this method is the high energy laser sources, which are quite expensive. Therefore, studies on cost-effective production techniques related to the additive manufacturing of metallic materials are being added each passing day. For this context, in this thesis study, additive manufacturing of CuSn10 bronze alloy was investigated. For this purpose, a method combining traditional metal injection molding and additive manufacturing technologies was used. A standard desktop 3D printer, which produces parts by FDM technique and uses polymeric filaments, was provided to be used within the scope of the study. The extruder head of the 3D printer was replaced by a granule extruder in order to print a polymeric granule mixture containing metal powder. Granule extruder was designed and produced within the scope of this thesis studies. Bronze metal powder and polymeric components were melt mixed, and by crushing and sieving processes after cooling, granule feedstock with a certain size range was obtained. The feedstock was shaped using a 3D printer. Metallic samples were obtained by subjecting the printed parts to debinding and sintering processes. Within the scope of the study, the effect of metal powder particle size on the physical, mechanical and wear properties of sintered metallic samples was investigated. As a result; depending on particle size reduction, decreased porosity, improved wear and mechanical properties were observed.