ULTRAFUSE 316L
This high filled filament allows for additive manufacturing of metal parts using the FFF process. It is a mixture of a metal powder (80 % of the filament) and a polymer used as a binder (20 %).
The manufacturing of a complete part comprises three steps:
- In a first step, a so-called „green body“ is printed from Ultrafuse like a common plastic filament.
- In a second step called debindering the binder material is extracted from the green body so that the part consists nearly completely of metal powder.
- The last step is sintering: The part is heated in a furnace at a temperature of at least 1,300°C. At the end of the sintering step, during which the part shrinks by up to 20 %, the completed metal part is obtained.
Processing of this filament requires a build area temperature of no less than 100°C in order to ensure basic strength of the part throughout all process steps.