3D Printing of Ti-6Al-4V Parts from Waste Material

Abstract:

This work is part of a project that aims to carry out industrial research on recovery of metallic Ti6Al4V waste material through the generation of recycled powders for their incorporation into the feedstock (in granular form) of extrusion based additive manufacturing processes. Preliminary printing tests show that commercially available 3D printing extrusion-based systems are ineffective at printing granules with particle sizes below 100 μm. Thus, a novel material extrusion screw-based 3D printing extrusion head is designed and tested with granular feedstock of different particle size distributions (1-100, 1-400, 100-475 and 475-550 μm). By means of this novel system, granular feedstock with sizes between 1 and 475 μm was successfully employed for the printing of green Ti6Al4V highly complex geometries. Critical printing parameters were investigated and optimized, demonstrating the feasibility of the incorporation of recycled Ti6Al4V powders into thermoplastic feedstocks for material extrusion additive manufacturing processes.

• Periodical: Key Engineering Materials (Volume 1009)
• Pages: 49-58
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/p-u0mgQX
• Online since: March 2025
• Authors: Miguel Grande-Molina*, Laura Calvo, Louison Poudelet, Roger Cardona, Caterina Chirico, Begoña Ferrari
• Keywords: Additive Manufacturing Processing Of Titanium, Advance Manufacturing, Material Extrusion 3D Printing, Recycled Powder, Screw Extruder, Ti6Al4V, Titanium Alloys, Titanium Powder Metallurgy

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