2024/08/18 by Sudeshna Roy, Roy, Sudeshna, Thorsten Pöschel +1
Engineering · #Additive Manufacturing Materials and Processes #Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing Technologies #FOS: Physical sciences #Injection Molding Process and Properties #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2408.09322
openalex publication_date 2024/08/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The quality of the powder spread in additive manufacturing devices depends sensitively on the particles' shapes. Here, we study powder spreading for mixtures of spherical and irregularly shaped particles in Polyamide 12 powders. Using DEM simulations, including heat transfer, we find that spherical particles exhibit better flowability. Thus, the particles are deposited far ahead of the spreading blade. In contrast, a large fraction of non-spherical particles hinders the flow. Therefore, the cold particles are deposited near the front of the spreading blade. This results in a temperature drop of the deposited particles near the substrate, which cannot be seen with spherical particles. The particles of both shapes are homogeneously distributed in the deposited powder layer.