Our Institute of Additive Materials Successfully Realize 3D Printing Tungsten Carbide Cemented Carbide Material

In March 2018, the Institute of Additive Manufacturing Technology and Engineering of Tianjin High-end equipment Research Institute of Tsinghua University successfully realized 3D printing parts of tungsten carbide cemented carbide materials by using electron beam selective melting technology, which is the first at home and abroad.

Cemented carbide is a kind of special material with high hardness and high wear resistance, which is widely used in military industry, aerospace, mechanical processing, metallurgy, oil drilling and other fields, and is usually manufactured by powder metallurgy process. 3D printing of cemented carbide materials usually uses adhesives to print out blanks and then sinter them. This method has the problems of large shrinkage, insufficient density and long process in the sintering process. In order to achieve technological breakthroughs, the Institute of Additive Manufacturing Technology and Engineering (hereinafter referred to as "Additive Institute") and Hunan Yishu Intelligence jointly worked together to overcome key technical problems such as the preparation and forming process of special powder raw materials for 3D printing, and successfully realized the 3D printing and forming of tungsten carbide hard alloy materials. Electron beam selective melting technology has the characteristics of high power density, high powder bed temperature and low forming stress, which effectively solves the problems of insufficient melting and easy cracking in the 3D printing process of special cemented carbide materials.

Printed Carbide Parts Photos

Carbide's 3D printing technology is based on the QbeamLab commercial open source electron beam metal 3D printing equipment developed by Additive. The equipment was officially released in our hospital on January 5, 2018. It is the first open source electron beam metal 3D printer in China. It has multiple advantages such as open source process parameters, modular customization, active powder supply, grid scanning heating, automatic electron beam calibration, process online monitoring, etc. As soon as it was launched, it received an order of more than 10 million yuan, including orders from well-known overseas companies, and successfully realized the export of domestic high-end metal 3D printers, breaking the long-standing market pattern monopolized by foreign products.

Tianjin Qingyan Zhishu Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Qingyan Zhishu"), an enterprise hatched by the High-end Institute of Additive Materials, has joined many industry associations such as the 3D Printing Medical Devices Professional Committee and the China Additive Manufacturing Industry Alliance. In 2018, Qingyan Zhibeam plans to participate in many professional exhibitions including TCT Asia Exhibition, German Formnext Exhibition, 2018 China Additive Manufacturing Conference, etc. It is unswervingly committed to providing world-class electron beam additive manufacturing solutions to more customers in the industry with international leading equipment, cutting-edge technology and high-quality products.

Report by the Institute of Additive Manufacturing Technology and Engineering/Ge Junyi