Selective Separation Sintering (SSS) A New Layer Based Additive Manufacturing Approach for Metals and Ceramics

Selective Separation Sintering (SSS) is a powder layer based Additive Manufacturing approach. SSS can fabricate high temperature ceramic and metallic parts at comparatively lower cost with high quality. In the printing process a dry powder of higher sintering temperature is deposited into the base material which makes up the part. The inserted powder defines the boundary of the part and separates the part from its surroundings. When printing of all layers is completed the deposited dry powder serves as a separation coating which defines the shape of the part. In the sintering process the base material is sintered into a solid part while the separation coating remains as loose powder. The part is then separated from the surrounding area at the separation coating surfaces, and is post processed if necessary. Preliminary results have proven the capability of SSS in successfully printing ceramic and metallic parts. Future experiments are planned for improving the process resolution.