Cellular materials, metallic bodies with gaseous voids interspersed throughout the solid body, are a promising class of materials that offer high strength accompanied by a relatively low mass. Recent research has focused in the topological design of cellular materials in order to satisfy multiple design objectives. Unfortunately, these design advances have not been met with similar advances in cellular material manufacturing as existing techniques constrain a designer to a predetermined part mesostructure, material type, and macrostructure. In an effort to address these limitations, the authors have developed a manufacturing process chain centered on an augmented three-dimensional printing process. Specifically, metallic cellular materials are made by selectively printing solvent into a bed of spray-dried metal oxide ceramic powder. The resulting green part is then sintered in a reducing atmosphere to chemically convert it to metal. The resultant process has produced maraging steel cellular artifacts featuring a 270-μm wall thickness and angled trusses and channels that are less than 1 mm in diameter
Original Title
Additive Manufacturing of Metallic Cellular Materials via Three-dimensional Printing
Cellular materials, metallic bodies with gaseous voids interspersed throughout the solid body, are a promising class of materials that offer high strength accompanied by a relatively low mass. Recent research has focused in the topological design of cellular materials in order to satisfy multiple design objectives. Unfortunately, these design advances have not been met with similar advances in cellular material manufacturing as existing techniques constrain a designer to a predetermined part mesostructure, material type, and macrostructure. In an effort to address these limitations, the authors have developed a manufacturing process chain centered on an augmented three-dimensional printing process. Specifically, metallic cellular materials are made by selectively printing solvent into a bed of spray-dried metal oxide ceramic powder. The resulting green part is then sintered in a reducing atmosphere to chemically convert it to metal. The resultant process has produced maraging steel cellular artifacts featuring a 270-μm wall thickness and angled trusses and channels that are less than 1 mm in diameter
Cellular materials, metallic bodies with gaseous voids interspersed throughout the solid body, are a promising class of materials that offer high strength accompanied by a relatively low mass. Recent research has focused in the topological design of cellular materials in order to satisfy multiple design objectives. Unfortunately, these design advances have not been met with similar advances in cellular material manufacturing as existing techniques constrain a designer to a predetermined part mesostructure, material type, and macrostructure. In an effort to address these limitations, the authors have developed a manufacturing process chain centered on an augmented three-dimensional printing process. Specifically, metallic cellular materials are made by selectively printing solvent into a bed of spray-dried metal oxide ceramic powder. The resulting green part is then sintered in a reducing atmosphere to chemically convert it to metal. The resultant process has produced maraging steel cellular artifacts featuring a 270-μm wall thickness and angled trusses and channels that are less than 1 mm in diameter
Additive manufacturing of metallic cellular materials
via three-dimensional printing Christopher B. Williams & Joe K. Cochran & David W. Rosen Received: 4 January 2010 / Accepted: 22 June 2010 / Published online: 17 July 2010 # Springer-Verlag London Limited 2010 Abstract Cellular materials, metallic bodies with gaseous voids interspersed throughout the solid body, are a promising class of materials that offer high strength accompanied by a relatively low mass. Recent research has focused in the topological design of cellular materials in order to satisfy multiple design objectives. Unfortunately, these design advances have not been met with similar advances in cellular material manufacturing as existing techniques constrain a designer to a predetermined part mesostructure, material type, and macrostructure. In an effort to address these limitations, the authors have developed a manufacturing process chain centered on an augmented three-dimensional printing process. Specifically, metallic cellular materials are made by selectively printing solvent into a bed of spray-dried metal oxide ceramic powder. The resulting green part is then sintered in a reducing atmosphere to chemically convert it to metal. The resultant process has produced maraging steel cellular artifacts featuring a 270-m wall thickness and angled trusses and channels that are less than 1 mm in diameter. Keywords Additive manufacturing . 3D printing . Cellular materials . Designed mesostructure 1 Manufacturing parts of designed mesostructure 1.1 Parts of designed mesostructure When modern man builds large load-bearing structures, he uses dense solids; steel, concrete, glass. When nature does the same, she generally uses cellular materials; wood, bone, coral. There must be a reason for it [1]. The observations of cellular materials found in the natural world have directed more than 50 years of research towards manufac- turing processes capable of producing metallic cellular materials. These structures, which feature gaseous voids interspersed throughout the solid body, are valued for having high strength accompanied by a relatively low density [2]. These materials can also offer large stiffness, improved impact absorption, and thermal and acoustic insulation to their applications [3]. Recent research has focused in designing the mesoscopic topology (the geometric arrangement of solid phases and voids within a material or product on the size range of 0.1 to 10 mm) of cellular materials in order to effectively support and improve multiple design objectives of the artifact [4, 5]. Example parts of designed mesostructure C. B. Williams (*) Department of Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 114F Randolph Hall, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA e-mail: cbwilliams@vt.edu URL: http://www.me.vt.edu/dreams J. K. Cochran School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA D. W. Rosen School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2011) 53:231239 DOI 10.1007/s00170-010-2812-2 include an acetabular cup (Fig. 1a) in which the porosity of the truss structure has been designed to match the porosity of the recipients bone so as to encourage bone growth upon implantation [6] and a trussed robot arm (Fig. 1b) that has been optimized to minimize mass while meeting strength and deflection constraints [7]. 1.2 Cellular material manufacturing Unfortunately, traditional cellular material manufacturing processes prevent the realization of these design improve- ments. Due to processing limitations, existing processes limit cellular topology to either a random assortment of voids (e.g., metal sponging and foaming processes such as Hydro/Alcan/Combal, Alporas, Formgrip, Gasar, etc. [1, 3]) or an ordered repetition of a unit cell (e.g., joining crimped sheet metal into a corrugated form [8], bonding metal textile screen meshes [9], sand/investment casting trussed lattices [10], etc.[11]). In addition to limiting cellular topology, the processes also constrain part macrostructure (most processes only offer planar geometry [12]) and material selection [1]. While these processes are capable of producing light-weight and strong cellular materials, these limitations prevent a designer from tailoring part mesostructure for specific design intent(s) [4, 13]. There are several research efforts to address the limitations of traditional cellular material manufacturing via the use of additive manufacturing (AM) technologies to create parts of designed mesostructure. Through their additive, layer-based building process, AM technologies (a.k.a., rapid prototyping, solid freeform fabrication, or layered manufacturing) offer the utmost geometric freedom in the design and manufacture of an artifact. As previous efforts to use polymer-based AM to indirectly create metal cellular structures through lost mold and investment casting techniques resulted in porous parts with limited cell sizes [14, 15], recent research has focused in creating metal parts with direct-metal AM techniques. Generally, the majority of these approaches are generally not ideal for manufacturing cellular materials due to limitations from poor resolution, poor surface finish, poor material properties, limited material selection, and need for support structures [13]. Ultrasonic consolidation [16] has been used to create closed aluminum honeycomb panels; however, the technol- ogy cannot build free-standing, unsupported, and angled ribs and trusses, thus limiting its ability to create complex cellular geometries [17]. Selective laser melting [18, 19], direct-metal laser sintering [20], and electron beam melting [21] have been successfully used to directly fabricate metallic cellular materials with designed mesostructure. While these technologies, which scan an energy source (e.g., laser or electron beam spot) over a powder bed of metal, are capable of creating fully dense parts with a small feature size, they have inherent limitations: & These processes are generally expensive (e.g., need for a high-powered energy source) and have slow build rates (e.g., vector scanning a small energy spot). & The use of a high-powered energy source can introduce residual stresses into the part, which arise from the high thermal gradients present in the material during part fabrication [22]. This can lead to curling and/or warping during the build; as such, support structures, which can be difficult to remove from small cells, must be added to the part geometry. & Thermal gradients (and thus warping and residual stresses) can be reduced by first preheating the powder bed with the energy source. This technique lightly sinters the powder bed before reapplying the energy source at an increased power (and/or decreased scan speed) to fully melt the powder to create the part [23]. However, pre-sintering the powder increases its strength, thus making the loose powder difficult to remove from the part; a feature that might hamper the fabrication of cellular artifacts. & Defects on bottom-facing surfaces and an overall poor surface finish typically arise due to the surface tension of the molten metal, which dominates at the small sizes required to achieve good surface finish and creates the potential for capillary instabilities [24]. & Problems arise when building over loose powder (which is common when creating overhanging surfaces) because the conductive heat transport is significantly Fig. 1 Parts of designed mesostructure: a acetabular cup [6] and b trussed robot arm [7] 232 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2011) 53:231239 larger than when building over previously melted powder [25]. This effect can cause delaminations, buckling, and warping of cellular mesostructure [26]. In an effort to address the limitations of existing cellular material manufacturing techniques, the authors have devel- oped a process for the realization of metal parts with designed mesostructure. Specifically the authors have augmented the three-dimensional printing process (3DP) for the creation of green parts (formed from metal oxide ceramic powders) that are suitable for conversion to metal via thermal chemical post-processing. 2 Manufacturing process chain: three-dimensional printing of metal oxide powders The manufacturing process chain proposed by the authors is composed of three steps, as presented in Fig. 2: a. Material preparation. Fine metal oxide powders are spray-dried with a binder to form granules suitable for processing with a 3DP machine. b. Artifact creation via three-dimensional printing. Cellu- lar ceramic green parts are fabricated using 3DP. c. Post-processing. Following the removal of excess pow- der, the metal oxide green part is sintered in a reducing atmosphere thus chemically converting it to metal. As the crux of the overall process is focused in the post- processing stage, each phase of the process is described in this section in reverse order. 2.1 Post-processing: chemically converting metal oxide green parts to metal via reduction In an effort to circumvent the limitations and difficulties (e. g., warping, residual stresses, etc.) typically encountered when directly fabricating metal parts via laser-based AM, the authors take inspiration from the linear cellular alloy (LCA) manufacturing process invented by the Georgia Tech Light- weight Structures Group [27]. In this process, metal oxide ceramic green artifacts are formed via extrusion and are then sintered in a reducing atmosphere. The ceramic precursor is chemically converted to metal, as the reducing agent typically a gas (e.g., hydrogen or carbon monoxide)reacts with the oxygen of the green part and forms water vapor, which is then removed from the system [28]. Cochran and coauthors have used this thermal/chemical procedure to process a number of transition metal oxides (Fe, Ni, Co, Cr, N Cu, Mo, W, Mn, and Nb), as well as many engineering alloys (stainless steel, maraging steel, Inconel, and Super Invar [29]) that are comparable to conventionally processed counterparts [27]. The primary requirement for this process is that the metal oxide must be reducible at moderate temperatures (below the melting points of the materials involved) with a partial pressure of oxygen not lower than 10 16 atm. This requirement excludes some elements such as Ti and Al because they are stable under these conditions; hence, they cannot be introduced into the alloy as an oxide and must be added in secondary processes. Cellular materials featuring cell sizes in the range of 0.5 to 2.0 mm with web thicknesses of 50 to 300 m have been created with the LCA process [27]. These small features are accomplished, in part, by the shrinkage that is accompanied with the reduction process (typically on the order of 30% to 70% by volume). This large shrinkage can cause cracks and/or warping if not controlled carefully [28]; however, it can be advantageous when fine geometric features are desired that otherwise would be difficult or expensive to fabricate [29]. Chemical reduction of metal oxide green parts to metal has the potential to alleviate many of the limitations found Step One Step Three-Dimensional Printing Two Material Preparation Oxide Powders Binder Drying Spray Drying Step Three Sintering & H 2 Reduction Finished Metal Part Direct Reduction Roller Print Head Powder Feed Piston Built Piston Built Object Binder Supply Fig. 2 Three-dimensional print- ing of spray-dried metal oxide powder followed by sintering and reduction Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2011) 53:231239 233 in direct-metal AM of cellular materials. The thermal/ chemical post-process provides a manner in which to create metal artifacts without the application of thermal energy in the forming stage of a manufacturing process chain, thus avoiding difficulties with thermal transport phenomena found in current direct-metal AM technologies (Sec- tion 1.2). Furthermore, implementing this post-processing technique is economically efficient, as the cost differential between a metal oxide powder and its metal counterpart is usually better than a 1-to-10 ratio [29]. Fine oxide powders are readily available in a pure and stable form. Compared to pure metal powders, metal oxides are safer as they are neither carcinogenic nor explosive. 2.2 Artifact creation: three-dimensional printing As the use of extrusion in the LCA process limits part geometry to linear macrostructure and an ordered meso- structure (that is constant throughout the extrusion), the authors look to combine the material strengths of the post- process (Section 2.1) with the geometric freedom offered by AM. Following a structured design process that featured a conceptual design phase and a formal selection process [30, 31], the authors determined that 3DP was the most suitable AM technology for creating green cellular parts composed of metal oxide ceramic material [32]. 3DP features the selective printing of a binder over a bed of powder via an array of inkjet nozzles [33] (Fig. 3). As the binder enters the powder bed, it selectively joins together powder particles to form printed primitives, which stitch together to form a cross-sectional layer. A roller is used to add a new layer of powder (at the desired thickness) onto the previously printed layer. Excess powder from this recoating process is caught into an overflow container for reuse. The authors chose 3DP as a method for creating metal oxide green cellular parts for the following reasons: & Speed: The parallel deposition of the multiple nozzles enables the 3DP technology to deposit entire portions of a layer in a single pass, thus dramatically increasing its build speed. & Cost: The two-dimensional patterning process imple- mented by 3DP is inherently scalable [34]; unlike laser- based systems, the quantity of toolheads (i.e., printing nozzles for 3DP) can be increased with very little increase in overall cost. One can imagine creating an array of print heads that would cover the entire width of the working area, such that only one linear stage is needed to sweep along the area, and thus increasing the deposition rate (and therefore reducing build time) significantly. & Resolution: The use of an inkjet printing nozzle to pattern binder provides the 3DP technology the ability to create parts with high resolution (minimum feature size of ~0.1 mm), which is a crucial requirement for the realization of cellular materials. The use of inkjet printing technology also enables the creation of cross sections that are characteristic of cellular materials. This is not true to all AM patterning techniques; extrusion processes, for example, are unable to satisfactorily deposit the small, discrete ellipses typically found in the cross sections of trussed structures (Fig. 4b) due to pores created by poor optimization of material flow, filament/roller slippage, liquefier head motion, and build/fill strategies [35]. & Complex geometry: Many AM technologies must create support structures to facilitate the construction of overhanging features (e.g., the trusses in Fig. 4a). Such structures are not desirable when creating parts with designed mesostructure because they would be very difficult to remove from the parts small pores and channels. The 3DP process eliminates the need for specialized support structures, as the unpatterned powder in the bed provides inherent support for the complex geometry typical of cellular material. Unpat- terned powder is easily removed from open cells via careful use of compressed air and a vacuum nozzle. One drawback of this approach, however, is that unpatterned Powder Feed Piston Build Piston Roller Print Head Binder Supply Built Object x z Fig. 3 Three-dimensional printing Fig. 4 Example a trussed material and its b cross section 234 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2011) 53:231239 powder cannot be removed from closed cells and can be troublesome to remove from very small channels. & Green part density: By working with the powder in its raw, loose form, 3DP avoids the solids loading and rheology constraints found in the other ceramic AM technologies that work with powder/binder suspensions (e.g., aqueous [36] and hot-melt [37] direct inkjet printing, extrusion [38], and stereolithography [39]). Compared to other ceramic AM processes (35 vol.% solids in direct hot-melt inkjet printing [37], 40 vol.% solids in extrusion [40]), 3DP has a relatively high green part solids loading (powder beds with as high as 55 vol.% have been observed [41]). 2.3 Material preparation: spray-dried metal oxide powders Fine powder particles are preferred over coarse particles in ceramics processing because they have better sintering characteristics, resulting in a finished part with a higher relative density and better material properties. However, one of the primary limitations with 3DP is its inability to properly spread fine dry powders with particle size less than 20 m [42, 43]. The authors look to circumvent this limitation by combining several fine particles into a larger granule, which is more suitable for the 3DP recoating process, via spray-drying. Spray-drying is the process of spraying a slurry, composed of fine powder particles (15 m) and a binder, into a warm- drying medium to produce powder granules that are relatively homogenous [44]. Spray-dried granules are nearly spherical and typically on the order of 30 m in diameter; therefore, they flow very well and are easily recoated in the 3DP process [45]. While the porous nature of spray-dried powders (60 vol.%) is detrimental in that it slightly decreases the solids loading possible for a green part, it is beneficial since smaller primitives result from the increased absorption of the jetted binder and/or solvent [46]. In addition to enabling 3DP to work with particle sizes that are typically too small to be spread, spray-drying the powder eliminates the need for printing a polymeric binder into the bed as a means of forming primitives (the traditional 3DP approach, Fig. 5a). Instead, the binder used to form granules can be activated in the powder bed through the printing of a solvent. The printed solvent will partially dissolve and deform the granule surface, creating printed primitives once dried (Fig. 5b). This approach is preferred not only because the solvents deformation of the granule surface will bring the ceramic fine particles together, but also because it is modularthe same solvent could be used on various ceramic spray-dried granules (assuming the same polymer coating is used), thus eliminating the need to reconfigure the material system. 3 Experimental methods 3.1 Material preparation While a wide variety of transition metal oxides can be reduced to metal using this procedure (Section 2.1), the authors have chosen to work with maraging steel in this work. Maraging steel features high strength and high fracture toughness and has uniform, predictable shrinkage during heat treatment. Finally, its constituents are easily reduced (Eqs. 13). Fe 3 O 4 4H 2 ! 3Fe 4H 2 O 1 Co 3 O 4 4H 2 ! 3Co 4H 2 O 2 NiO H 2 ! Ni H 2 O 3 Ametal oxide powder systemthat will chemically convert to maraging steel (Fe 18.5Ni 8.5Co 5Mo) upon reduction was Polymer Binder Metal Oxide Particles Printed Primitive Solvent Spray-dried Granules Printed Primitive a b Fig. 5 Powder/binder material system options: a coarse particles with printed binder and b spray-dried fine particles with printed solvent 1400 Sintering (1300 C) 1200 1000 800 Reduction (850 C) 600 400 T e m p e r a t u r e
( C ) Binder burnout (450 C) 200 0 0 5 10 15 20 Time (hr) Fig. 6 Cycle for reduction and sintering of 3D printed maraging steel Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2011) 53:231239 235 created by combining iron oxide (Fe 3 O 4 ), nickel oxide (NiO), cobalt oxide (Co 3 O 4 ), and molybdenum metal (Mo) powders and ball milling them for 24 h. Once mixed, the metal oxide powder system is spray-dried with a 4 wt.% poly-vinyl alcohol (PVA) solution (Celvol 203, offered by Celanese Chemicals). This PVA was chosen because it is water soluble and is a common binder that works well with almost any oxide ceramic [47]. The powder particles were spray-dried by Aero-Instant Spray-Drying Services of Brunswick, Georgia. 3.2 Part fabrication Once spray-dried, the metal oxide granules are processed using a ZCorp Z402 three-dimensional printer [48]. Printing tests were performed using two different printed binding mechanisms: (a) ZCorps standard binder (ZB7 binder) and (b) a mild solvent (an 80/20 mixture of distilled water and isopropyl alcohol (IPA)). The layer thickness was held constant across all experiments at 100 m as it provided the highest quality surface upon recoating. Aware of the porosity of the spray-dried granules, and small features typical of cellular materials, the saturation level was set at its maximum value of 2. All other printing parameters are unchanged from default settings. Once printing has completed, parts are left in the powder bed for 20 min (often under an infrared lamp) to allow the binder to fully dry. The green parts are then transferred to a depowdering station where unbound powder is carefully removed from the complex cellular geometry using com- pressed air and a vacuum nozzle in combination. 3.3 Post-processing Once depowdered, the green parts are reduced and sintered in an atmosphere-controlled tube furnace in an Ar10% H 2 environment using the cycle presented in Fig. 6. The determination of the facets of the sintering scheme were guided by Cochran and coauthors earlier experimentation in sintering metal oxide constituents of maraging steel for the production of linear cellular alloys [27, 28]. The heating cycle is composed of three phases: debinding of the PVA binder (2C/min ramp to 450C with 0.5 h hold), reduction of the metal oxide green part (3C/min ramp to 850C with 6 h hold), and metal sintering (3C/min ramp to 1,300C with 3 h hold). The hold duration for the reduction and sintering phases were varied via experimentation; the final values were chosen as they ensured that the finished parts would have all oxide phases completely removed and would be as dense as possible. 4 Results 4.1 Phase identification X-ray diffraction (completed with molybdenum radiation) was used to identify the phases present in samples created by the manufacturing process. Count peaks occur at 2= Table 1 Density measurements for 4 wt.% granule systems Granule binder content Deposited binder/solvent Average relative density Average open porosity 4 wt.% Polymeric binder (ZB7) 59.15% 36.15% 4 wt.% Solvent (water + IPA) 62.57% 34.4% Fi 7b Fig. 7b a c b Fig 7c Fig. 7c z x z x yy Fig. 7 a Schematic of sample and b micrographs of cross- sectional surfaces perpendicular to build direction and c parallel to build direction 236 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2011) 53:231239 20.155, 28.651, 35.284, 40.97, 46.067, and 50.755. These results correspond to a BCC iron phase (JADE phase identification software; powder diffraction file # 00-0006- 0696) with a figure of merit (FoM) of 3.5. From this, it can be concluded that no oxide phase is present in the finished parts; thus the parts are fully reduced. 4.2 Density As discussed in Section 3.2, two primitive creation principles were tested: one featuring the printing of a polymeric binder to bind granules, the other featuring the printing of a solvent to partially dissolve the spray-dried granules binder. The density and open porosity of multiple test parts created from both material systems were calculated using the Archimedes method (assuming marag- ing steel has a bulk density of 8.2 g/cm 3 ). As can be seen in Table 1, printing a solvent into the powder bed produces parts with a higher density and a lower open porosity. The solvent deforms the spray-dried granules, which in turn brings the enclosed fine particles closer together and leads to a better sintering performance and a higher part density. The relatively low density measurement is attributed to a poor powder bed density (estimated to between 30% and 40% in these experiments) and an insufficient deformation of the spray-dried granules. This is a limitation of the authors specific embodiment; experiments wherein excess solvent was applied manually to the powder bed resulted in parts with an average relative density of 81%and an open porosity of 9% after reduction and sintering. 4.3 Porosity and shrinkage In order to further evaluate the quality of the parts created by this manufacturing process, part porosity is investigated by examining the cross-sectional surfaces of samples (Fig. 7). Figure 7b provides an opportunity to analyze the porosity present in a typical cross-sectional layer (xy plane as per Fig. 7a) fabricated by the process when a solvent is used for creating primitives. It is observed that the pores are aligned parallel to the direction of the print head travel (y-axis; left to right in Fig. 7b), and thus are locations in which printed bands did not successfully overlap or stitch to one another. This can be attributed to a clogged print nozzle, but is more likely due to unoptimized binder characteristics (surface tension, wetting of granules, viscosity, droplet size, etc.) and associated process parameters (e.g., printed line overlap). The cross section presented in Fig. 7c provides an opportunity to analyze the porosity that exists along the build direction of the part (yz plane as per Fig. 7a; from the bottom to the top of Fig. 7c). Again, parallel lines of porosity are observed. These lines correspond to parts layers and suggest an inadequate level of solvent saturation into the powder bed. This problem can be alleviated through an increase in the amount of solvent deposited by the print head. Average linear shrinkage, as measured and calculated (L/L o ) across several printed samples between their green and sintered states, is 45%. This shrinkage is a result of both the part porosity caused by unoptimized printing parameters and the act of reducing metal oxide to Fig. 8 Sample part featuring intersecting channels: a CAD model, b metal oxide green part, and c part after sintering and reduction Fig. 9 Cellular material sample in its various representations during the manufacturing pro- cess chain: a CAD model, b metal oxide green part, and c part after sintering and reduction Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2011) 53:231239 237 metal (Section 2.1). There was slight anisotropic shrinkage in the parts due to the parallel lines of porosity (Fig. 7); on average, parts experienced 1% more linear shrinkage in the direction that is orthogonal to these lines of pores. 4.4 Cellular geometry Several test parts were created in an effort to characterize the proposed manufacturing process capability of fabricat- ing parts of designed mesostructure. Each test part contains features that are common to geometries typical of cellular materials: thin walls, small channels, and angled trusses. & Thin walls: The minimum wall thickness created, as measured after sintering and reduction, was 270 m. It should be noted that this is not necessarily the best possible result of the proposed augmented 3DP process as printing resolution is primarily dependent on the printhead of the specific 3DP machine. & Small channels: The channel size limit that can be created is not imposed by the resolution and printing accuracy of the 3DP process. In its current embodiment, the limit is imposed by the ability of the green part to withstand the vigorous depowdering that is necessary to remove the unbound powder trapped within the chan- nels. Thus far, channels 2 mm in diameter as printed in the green state (1.1 mm in diameter after sintering and reduction) have been successfully created, as seen in Fig. 8. & Angled trusses: Angled trusses can be difficult to process in an AM context as the combination of acute angles, thin trusses, and relatively large layer thick- nesses can lead to non-overlapping layers. Experiments have shown that trusses, as small as 1.75 mm in diameter (green state), can be printed when inclined to the build plane at angles as low as 20. With the processs ability to realize the geometrical building blocks of parts of designed mesostructure verified, a series of parts featuring complex cellular geometry were created. An example piece, featuring trusses less than 1 mm in diameter (post-sintering), is shown in Fig. 9. As can be seen, the surface roughness is similar to other powder-based AM processes, which is akin to a sand casting. Additional parts of designed mesostructure created by this process are presented in [49]. 5 Conclusions In this paper, the authors present a layer-based additive manufacturing process for the realization of metal parts with designed mesostructure. Specifically, metal oxide green ceramic parts, created by three-dimensional printing, are sintered and reduced in a hydrogen/argon atmosphere to chemically convert the part to metal. The green parts are formed by printing a solvent into a powder bed composed of spray-dried granules; the solvent deforms the binder- coated granules, thus pulling the enclosed fine particles closer together and improving the sintering performance (i. e., density) of the green part. The process has been shown to successfully create parts with designed mesostructure (Fig. 7). In addition to creating cellular artifacts, it has fabricated walls as thin as 270 m, channels as small as 1.1 mm in diameter, and angled trusses less than 1 mm in diameter. Furthermore, the specific process embodiment used by the authors has produced finished parts with an average relative density of 63% and an average linear shrinkage of 45%. Many opportunities exist for improving the proposed manufacturing process. Part density could be improved by exploring techniques for increasing powder bed density, by increasing solvent deposition, by optimizing the solvent/ powder bed interface, or by depositing a nanoparticle suspension into the powder bed. Printing resolution (and thus, part feature size) could be improved through explor- ing different print head embodiments. A different recoating solution might enable the use of finer particles, thus resulting in smaller printed features and an improved final part density. As a preliminary cost analysis indicates that metal parts created by the process cost only ~$3/in 3 [49], the authors believe the process merits further improvement. Acknowledgments We gratefully acknowledge the funding given by NSF DMI-0522382. Christopher Williams acknowledges the financial support provided by the Georgia Tech Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results (TI:GER) program (NSF IGERT-0221600). Dr. Michael Middelmas is acknowledged for his laboratory assistance during the reduction and sintering post-process (Section 3.3). The authors would also like to thank Mr. Joe Pechin of Aero-Instant Spray Drying Services for his generosity and assistance in preparing the experimental powder system (Section 3.1). References 1. 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