Large Scale Additive Manufacturing of Inorganic Components

The core of this doctoral thesis is the production of large scale pieces via powder bed Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology. The main advantage of AM is the possibility to easily produce complicated and customized shapes with great benefit in term of materials consumption, production costs and time consumed. Very few companies work in this specific field with inorganics materials. The research project has been carried out in collaboration with Desamanera srl, under a contract of apprenticeship for higher education. The company, founded as innovative startup in Rovigo since December 2014, works in the field of large scale additive manufacturing and special surface finishing, with minerals, ceramics and inorganic materials. Desamanera process allows to consolidate the powder bed composed of aggregate and binder thanks to the selective deposition of simple water. The optimization process has involved different aspects: raw materials analysis and selection (aggregates and binder), printing process improvements and post-printing treatments. All the work was carried out maintaining the proper balance between the basic research and the practical needs that a small company can have. The study of raw materials has allowed to identify the main characteristics of the various components and to find new products and suppliers, compatible with the company needs of low cost and ease of supply, even in limited quantities. The printing process optimizations have followed the goal of going to improve fundamental aspects such as the deposition of the water, the laying of the powder mix and the interfaces between the layers. At the same time, the stability and reproducibility of the entire process has been increased. Starting form printed part analysis, new post-printing treatments are been developed with the aim of increase the strength of the final material or of adding new specific properties. Finally, a general overview of the already started projects is given and new possible applications are hypothesized and suggested.