Shape Optimization in Thermal Debinding Process of 3D-Printed Pure Copper Green Parts

Abstract:

Copper and its alloys exhibit great application potential in the field of thermal management due to their high thermal conductivity, while 3D printing technique serves as the key to expand their applications. Debinding technique is one of the main factors restricting the development of 3D printing technique. Quantitative indicators for the thermal debinding quality of binder jetting (BJ) printed green parts are established. The binder distribution inside the BJ-printed green parts is optimized, and the optimization results of different strategies are compared and verified through experiments. The results show that the optimal parameters for the optimized area of the binder distribution inside the green part are S₁/S₀=0.6, R₁/R₀=0.4, and R₂/R₀=0.8. The shape-optimized result of the binder distribution also shows a flared shape, which is narrower at the top and wider at the bottom. After printing verification, it is found that there is no significant difference in the printing effect. Analysis of the compressive strength of different binder distribution strategies with the same overall binder content reveals that the shape optimization improves the performance by 10% compared with that of the non-optimized case.