Fundamental Investigations on Additive Manufacturing Methodby Selective Solidification Using Electrical Discharge

抄録

We propose an additive manufacturing (AM) method using electrical discharge with twin electrodes. Today, inexpensive three-dimensional (3D) modeling machines for fused deposition modeling (FDM) with resin fibers are used in various fields. On the other hand, laser sources and electron beam guns as heat sources for the powder bed fusion (PBF) method with metal powder are generally expensive. This impedes the wide use of modeling machines. In the proposed AM method, part of the powder layer is selectively solidified by electrical discharge from the twin electrodes through the surface of a metal powder layer. It is expected that the use of a discharge circuit as an inexpensive heat source will reduce the total machine cost and the overall machine size. A three-dimensional shape with overhangs was successfully fabricated by laminating thin layers.