Posted on 10/18/2024 10:49:26 AM PDT by Red Badger
Enhanced 3D printing techniques now allow for the production of 17-4 PH stainless steel, optimizing its strength and corrosion resistance. This achievement marks a significant step forward in the additive manufacturing of complex alloys. Credit: SciTechDaily.com
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Using advanced X-ray techniques, scientists have achieved a significant milestone in 3D printing by producing 17-4 PH stainless steel with superior strength and durability.
This development promises to lower costs and increase production flexibility, offering profound implications for manufacturing complex materials.
Breakthrough in 3D Printing of Stainless Steel Researchers have developed a reliable method to produce a specific type of stainless steel, 17-4 PH, using additive manufacturing or 3D printing. Historically, 3D printing steel and other alloys has been problematic due to the rapid temperature changes these materials undergo when heated by the lasers in 3D printers. These fluctuations disrupt the structural arrangement of atoms, compromising the material’s toughness. By employing bright X-ray beams, scientists monitored these swift changes in real time and modified the chemical composition to counteract them, thereby enhancing the durability of the final product.
Known for its robustness and corrosion resistance, 17-4 PH stainless steel is utilized in industrial machinery, marine vessels, aircraft, and medical devices. These new advancements could enable manufacturers of 17-4 PH components to reduce costs and improve manufacturing flexibility. Moreover, the techniques developed in this study pave the way for a deeper understanding of how to 3D print various materials while enhancing their properties and performance.
Microtomographic 3D snapshots of complex structure of thermal cracks and air bubbles in an additive manufactured metal during the 3D printing process. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory Innovations in Additive Manufacturing
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3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is a direct and integral construction of a three-dimensional object from a digital model, layer by layer. Metal alloys are particularly tricky to print in this manner due to the rapid temperature changes that occur during the process. Using 3D printing to reproduce a durable material such as 17-4 PH stainless steel requires the ability to closely monitor these rapid changes as they happen and make modifications to the material’s crystal structure.
Monitoring 3D printing of 17-4 PH stainless steel was made possible by the bright X-ray beams at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a Department of Energy Office of Science light source user facility at Argonne National Laboratory. The researchers used high-energy X-ray diffraction to capture images every few milliseconds as the material was heated and cooled. Using these images, the team mapped the correlation between process parameter changes and modifications to the crystal structure, then used that analysis to guide alloy development for optimizing the printing process. They then used small-angle X-ray scattering at the APS to characterize tiny structural anomalies called nanoprecipitates that strongly influence the final strength of a printed stainless-steel part. The method developed will help enable manufacturers to consistently and cost efficiently produce one of the toughest materials in the world.
Reference:
“Phase transformation dynamics guided alloy development for additive manufacturing”
by Qilin Guo, Minglei Qu, Chihpin Andrew Chuang, Lianghua Xiong, Ali Nabaa, Zachary A. Young, Yang Ren, Peter Kenesei, Fan Zhang and Lianyi Chen, 2 August 2022, Additive Manufacturing.
DOI: 10.1016/j.addma.2022.103068
This work was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Startup Fund and used resources at the UW-Madison Wisconsin Centers for Nanoscale Technology partially supported by NSF through the University of Wisconsin Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. The research also used resources at the Advanced Photon Source, a Department of Energy Office of Science user facility.
The photo has an oddly steam punk look to it.
Kinda AI looking
Yes...............
So if you should want - and I would never recommend such a thing - a fully 3D printed firearm... Those would be illegal to transfer, naturally, but you can make something like that for yourself legally if you should be so inclined and naturally I would never entertain the notion myself. Officer.
It looks like AI generated image. And I’ll bet it IS.
I did a lot of experimenting a few weeks ago with Foocus and https://openart.ai/create
I ended up with a lot of cool pictures that I used for promo stuff for my band. But all of the images have a “not normal” quality if you look closely. Sometimes people have three legs, or a guitar has two necks. And if you try to get a volkswagen bus, it looks similar to a volkswagen bus, but not exactly.
Stuff like that. And that is what this picture looks like. It’s based on reality, but not real.
“This development promises to lower costs...”
What’s the material deposit rate ? Maybe a pound per hour ?
It is ludicrous to claim that multi-million dollar production equipment producing a pound per hour will “lower costs”.
17-4 PH is one very useful steel. 3D printing allows shapes that are difficult to produce with conventional machining. I wish it was available in the 70’s.
Guns are not going to help in the next conflict. You better print drones of all kinds. drones with hunter killer AI on board GPU means no need for remote guidance and makes them unjammable only EMP can fry them and that’s not something joe six pack will ever have. AI drones of the flying kind all sizes, cat or rat sized quadrupeds to scurry into buildings and rubble or tunnels, even down to wasp sized winged drones.
5 grams of TNT or RDX from two feet away is 100% lethal in overpressure even without shrapnel. A wasp sized drone could carry 5g. You don’t even need high brilliance materials. Biologicals are even lighter for lethality. The lethal dose of fentanal is in the micrograms range a hypo stinger with that would be lethal in seconds. Same for VX or any of the CNS agents. Even commercial bug spray in a hypo stinger would be lethal in gram amounts. Drones can mist a room with an agent then just fly or scurry out. Mist CNS don’t need to be breathed skin contact with micrograms mist amounts is enough. Does the resistance have MOP4 suits and could they fight in them 24/7.
Drones can be armed with projectile weapons that fling RDX or TNT filled fragment rounds from a distance with supersonic speeds well outside shotgun ranges. Ask the ukes and Russians both sides have fully automatic weapons there is video of guys emptying a full AK74 mag as a drone and it still kamikaze dives into them and BOOM no more guy with a fully automatic weapon.
Drones and mechanical engineering is the next war or conflict it’s silly to think having a 16th century device will turn the tide or win that conflict. Those who control the tech win the next war and war.
“What’s the material deposit rate ? Maybe a pound per hour ?”
You are off by a factor of about 150.
“And that is what this picture looks like. “
3-D printing is very real.
I’m aware of all that, but I suspect that the next conflict won’t be fought on that level any more than The Troubles were in Ireland. Old weapons kill just fine - a rather nasty little war is being carried out in European cities at the present with knives, for example. Drive-by shootings are difficult to oppose with drones unless you already have them in the air. I’ll keep my firearms, thanks. Those I have; I’m a little short on wasp-sized drones with RDX. You fight with the weapons you have, not the ones you want. YMMV, naturally.
Agreed. 17-4 is one of the nicer stainless steel (it rusts like crazy if not protected) to machine. I have a 3D printer. But I can machine something way faster than I can 3D print something.
After seeing the names of the people involve in this study I can guess that the Chi-Coms have already received the technology in detail.
No wonder we’re so vulnerable with the theft of our Intellectual properties.
Congress has to tighten up security for these Military Use technologies.
holding out here for the 3D printed “IRON MAN” flying suit with real working blaster palms.
We don’t have a 3D metal printer at work (yet). They can’t compete with the speed of, say, a Swiss lathe.
But we could one-off surgical instruments for doctors, a custom job.
That’s how the medical device industry got started, engineers and machinists making custom parts for doctors and patients.
3-D printing is very real.
It’s possible to create amazing, realistic photos of “technical looking” things that don’t exist
Finally, a photo of a muffler bearing!
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