Correlation between Metal Fused Filament Fabrication parameters and material properties of sintered 17-4 PH

prototypes and ready-to-use finished parts showing geometries and a level of integration impossible to achieve with traditional technologies. The well-established methods of metal AM require high initial investments and the use of expensive metal powders which can be sources of hazards if not treated properly. Those drawbacks are driving the growing research on the innovative Metal Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) technology, which implements a standard FFF machine to print a filament composed of metal powders of controlled granulometry and two types of binders. The obtained part requires 2 further steps namely debinding and sintering. The former process allows the removal of the first binder type whereas the latter is used to completely remove the polymer and produce the metal powder sintering leading to an all-metal part. The result is a metal objects with very good mechanical properties, although slightly inferior to those of the parts obtained by Selective Laser Melting. However, the correlation between the FFF printing parameters and the final product mechanical properties are currently not entirely understood. This research activity aims at bridging this knowledge gap by optimising the filament printing process to maximise the sintered product mechanical properties. Different extrusion parameter and patterns will be used to produce mechanical sample for tensile and compressive tests, and the effects of the printing parameters on the static mechanical properties will be documented. The parameter having the greatest influence on the mechanical properties is the raster angle. Specimens with an infill orientation of 0°-90° exhibit a Young's modulus 20% higher compared to other orientations. However, this comes at the expense of a 50-70% lower elongation at break compared to 0° configurations.