The introduction of additive manufacturing (AM) in the form of 3D printing has revitalized metals research. However, until now too little focus has been devoted to the input powders; this in-spite of its critical importance for the properties of the printed parts. REPOWDER’s first aim is to develop new powders with improved performance resulting in printed parts with more uniform and predictive properties, less residual stress and lower susceptibility to cracking than existing ones. Focus will be on optimizing powder specifications; including chemical composition. The qualities of the powders will be characterised and relations to the microstructures and properties of the printed parts will be established. REPOWDER’s second main aim is to quantify available stainless steel scrap resources and establish how they can best be made available for AM. This information will be used to classify available scrap and document that high quality powders can be made from recycled steel.
CONSORTIUM
DTU Mechanical Engineering represented by Prof. Dorte Juul Jensen, Assoc. Prof. Niels S. Tiedje and Researcher Tianbo Yu has achieved international recognition in physical metallurgy, powder metallurgy, solidification, advanced microstructural characterization by electron microscopy, X-ray scattering and in-situ 3D/4D imaging. Experimental tools are available including the gas atomiser, powder handling equipment, furnaces, electron microscopes and state-of-the-art X-ray tomography. We further have a good track record of being awarded beamtime at international synchrotron sources.
SDU Life Cycle Engineering represented by Prof. Henrik Wenzel is an internationally leading research group within the field of Environmental System Analysis. The research group was formed in 2007 by the employment of Henrik Wenzel and today employs 3 professors and has a total staff of 22, funded predominantly externally. The group has attracted around a hundred external, international and national research projects, almost all of which addressing environmental system analysis and increasingly looking at various aspects of material recovery and circular economy.
Grundfos A/S represented by Manager Thorsten B. Otte and Senior Engineer Dagny S. Primdahl are leading the AM activities at Grundfos. They will contribute to the project in the steering committee, provide the scrap material and print samples using their state-of-the-art AM equipment from two 50 kg batches of powders produced from scrap and of the new optimised chemical composition, respectively.
Danish Technological Institute (DTI) is represented by Nikolaj Vedel-Smith. As the leading consultant on AM to Danish industries they contribute to the project in the steering committee and by making test prints of customised alloy powders.
The affiliated partners, Aachen and Manchester Universities represented by Prof. Andreas Bührig-Polaczek and Prof. Philip Withers are internationally leading within rapid solidification and powder technology and AM/advanced x-ray characterization, respectively. They have been chosen because of their internationally leading scientific contributions in their respective topics, supplementing the Danish partners with their expertise. They will host the PhD student during his/her external stay, and annual exchange visits among senior staff is budgeted. It is expected that this tight network will form the foundation for future cooperation and Danish participation in larger (e.g. EU funded) projects.