Publication: Fabrication and properties of stainless steel filled filament for extrusion-based 3d metal printing
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Date
2025-08-04
Authors
Muhammad Amirul Danial bin Razali
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Abstract
This study focuses on the fabrication and characterization of 17-4PH stainless steel filled filament for extrusion-based additive manufacturing (AM), particularly fused filament fabrication (FFF). The objective is to fabricate 17-4PH stainless steel filled filament with sufficient flexibility, evaluate the effect of different metal loadings on rheology and properties of the filament. The feedstock was formulated with a multiple binder system consisting of 84% thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), 14% polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and 2% stearic acid (SA) with metal loading 50, 75 and 80 vol.%. Feedstock with 50 vol.% metal loading was identified as the optimal loading with the ability offering high flexibility and consistent extrusion. The filament had a consistent diameter of 1.75 mm and sufficient flowability for extrusion and 3D printing. The filament was subjected to solvent debinding using different solvents which were cyclohexane, tetrahydrofuran (THF), dimethyl formamide (DMF), dimethyl sulfoxide (DMS) and acetone-methyl ethyl ketone (acetone-MEK) where high solvent removal about 20% was achieved using DMSO at 10 to 30 minutes. EDX analysis showed 67 wt.% of carbon (C) element presented in the 50 vol.% metal loading filament and reduced to 16.28 wt.% after subjected to solvent debinding and no C element presented after sintering process. At the same time, the 50 vol.% filament was subjected to 3D printing to produces printed parts. High printing quality was achieved at printing temperature of 220°C, bed temperature of 80°C and 60 mm/s printing speed.