AM DfAM Series - Binder Jetting Processing is About the Processing

Kirk Rogers and John Barnes, The Barnes Global Advisors

In our previous article we covered considerations on the overall approach for designing for the process depending on the flexibility the designer has with the part.  In this article, we’re honing in specifically on designing for BJP considerations by highlighting some of the critical process steps which form design constraints.

Binder Jet Processing (BJP) has been in the news a lot in 2020.  BJP has tremendous potential, and we would like to spend some time describing the design space.  You could say we are bound and determined to help people design for BJP.  We often hear people comparing it to Powder Bed Fusion, because it does look similar from a printing perspective.  It uses powder.  It creates a bed.  At this point however they differ; where the energy on PBF would melt the powders to densify them, BJP jets a binder, or glue, to precisely bind the powder particles together.  They are still separate particles until much later when they get densified.  When designing for BJP, Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) and Modify for Additive Manufacturing (MfAM) are still critical and take on a meaning of their own. It is the P, or the processing, that is significant in BJP.

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