TPA Brianza: 3D printed equipment parts with 17-4 PH filament
TPA Brianza designs and builds special high-tech industrial plants. Their machinery is used in many applications, such as systems and equipment for the construction of turbine stators and rotors, winding lines and assembly equipment for superconductors, digital textile printing and welding plants.
The company relied on FastParts for the production - using metal 3D printing technology - of about 60 elements used in the retrofit of some equipment for butt welding of stainless steel pipes.
Metal filament 3D printing technology (Metal FFF) was selected because it is functional in terms of cost compared to other additive metal 3D printing technologies. In this way it is possible to obtain spare parts quickly and maintaining full design freedom. For the construction of the components, 17-4 PH stainless steel was used and chosen to withstand the operating temperatures near the weld pool and to avoid polluting the base material to be welded.
Metal FFF
The Metal FFF process is divided into 3 phases: the first consists of 3D printing the metal filaments of BASF Forward AM, composed of high levels of stainless steel powder in combination with a polymer binder that allows printability on FFF 3D printers. The 3D printers used to make the TPA Brianza components were the BCN3D W50.
The parts obtained from 3D printing (green parts) are then subjected to a second phase of catalytic debinding treatment for the removal of the binder and finally to a sintering treatment to obtain the component which is almost 100% stainless steel. The sintered parts can be reworked in the machine tool or it is possible to perform finishing operations.
Conclusions
Thanks to the FFF 3D printing of the metal parts, TPA Brianza achieved a saving of 30% on the unit cost compared to traditional CNC machining. Furthermore, the TPA Brianza technicians have estimated that 3D printing can ensure unit savings for lots of up to 2,000pcs.
Do you need to print metal parts with FFF technology, or do you want to test our Debinding and Sintering service?