Understanding the Role of Rheology in Binder-based Metal Additive Manufacturing of Solid and Nanoporous Metals
Description
This dissertation is focused on the rheology scaling of metal particle reinforced polymermatrix composite made of solid and nanoporous metal powders to enable their
continuous 3D printing at high (>60vol%) metal content. There remained a specific
knowledge gap on how to predict successful extrusion with densely packed metals by
utilizing their suspension melt rheological properties. In the first project, the scaling of
the dynamic viscosity of melt-extrudate filaments made of Polylactic acid (PLA) and
gas-atomized solid NiCu powders was studied as a function of the metal’s volumetric
packing and feedstock pre-mixing strategies and correlated to its extrudability
performance, which fitted well with the Krieger-Dougherty analytical model. 63.4
vol% Filaments were produced by employing solution-mixing strategy to reduce
sintered part porosity and shrinkage. After sintering, the linear shrinkage dropped by
76% compared to the physical mixing. By characterizing metal particle reinforced
polymer matrix composite feedstock via flow-sweep rheology, a distinct extension of
shear-thinning towards high shear rates (i.e. 100 s-1) was observed at high metal content
– a result that was attributed to the improved wall adhesion. In comparison, physically mixed filament failed to sustain more than 10s-1 shear rate proving that they were prone
to wall slippage at a higher shear rate, giving an insight into the onset of extrusion
jamming. In the second project, nanoporous copper made out of electroless chemical
dealloying was utilized as fillers, because of their unique physiochemical properties.
The role of capillary imbibition of polymers into metal nanopores was investigated to
understand their effect on density, zero-shear viscosity, and shear thinning. It was
observed that, although the polymeric fluid’s transient concentration regulates its
wettability, the polymer chain length ultimately dictates its melt rheology, which consequentially facilitates densification of pores during vacuum annealing. Finally, it
was demonstrated that higher imbibition into nanopores leads to extrusion failure due
to a combined effect of volumetric packing increase and nanoconfinement, providing a
deterministic materials design tool to enable continuous 3D printing. The outcome of
this study might be beneficial to integrate nanoporous metals into binder-based 3D
printing technology to fabricate interdigitated battery electrodes and multifunctional 3D
printed electronics.
Date Created
The date the item was original created (prior to any relationship with the ASU Digital Repositories.)
2022
Agent
- Author (aut): Hasib, Amm
- Thesis advisor (ths): Azeredo, Bruno
- Thesis advisor (ths): Song, Kenan
- Committee member: Nian, Qiong
- Committee member: Kwon, Beomjin
- Committee member: Li, Xiangjia
- Publisher (pbl): Arizona State University