Publications Details
Demonstration of Metallic Coatings for High Durability Polymer BAAM Tooling
Vackel, Andrew V.; Miller, Andrew S.
The ability to print polymeric materials at a high volume rate (~1000 in3/hr) has been demonstrated by Oak Ridge National Lab's (ORNL) Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF) and shows promise for new opportunities in Additive Manufacturing (AM), particularly in the rapid fabrication of tooling equipment for prototyping. However, in order to be effective, the polymeric materials require a metallic coating akin to tool steels to survive the mechanical and thermal environments for their intended application. Thus, the goal of this project was to demonstrate a pathway for metallizing Big Area Additive Manufactured (BAAM) polymers using a Twin Wire Arc (TWA) spray coating process. Key problems addressed in this study were the adhesion of sprayed layers to the BAA1V1 polymer substrates and demonstration of hardness and compression testing of the metallized layers.