Additive Manufacturing of Aluminium by Means of Fused Filament Fabrication - ALF3

Project summary

The primary goal of the project AlF3 is to develop Fused Filament Fabrication – FFF technique for the additive manufacturing of aluminium parts (Al-FFF). This eliminates the drawbacks of existing routes for additive manufacturing of aluminium like SLM (e.g. high cost, handling of powder) and opens new design options as the production of closed cavities and multi-material parts, for e.g. the combination of wear resistant and tough aluminium alloys. Further, high-performance alloys (precipitation hardening alloys, Metal Matrix Composites – MMC) can be employed. A new feedstock is developed integrating the requirements of the whole process chain together with the related printing, debinding and sintering processes. On the base of concrete use cases the feasibility of the new process is investigated and proven. The whole project and especially the use cases are supervised by the Advisory Board, which should secure the later transfer of the project results into innovations.