The ExOne Company, a manufacturer of industrial sand and metal 3D printers using binder jetting technology, and ANSYS, an engineering simulation company, have announced a partnership to develop software that will predict the sintering behavior of binder-jetted metal parts.
Binder jetting is a mature 3D printing process that uses a digital file to quickly inkjet a binder into a bed of powder particles metal, sand or ceramic creating a solid part one layer at a time. When printing metals, the final part must be sintered in order to fuse the particles together into a solid object. The new software under development aims to better predict how parts will behave during sintering, so that adjustments can be made or automated to achieve desired results.
The beta software for 316L stainless steel is targeted for the first quarter of 2020, with modeling software for other materials expected to follow.