Flexible additive manufacturing of steel strips

Purpose and goal:

The project aimed to investigate whether it is possible to produce strip steel products, specifically doctor blades for the printing press industry and saw blades, using additive manufacturing with a minimal number of subsequent operations.

Sub-goals for the project included, material selection, parameter optimization and application tests to compare performance with conventionally produced products. Expected results and effects:

All objective set in the project have been met. After project is completed, potential is seen in additive manufacturing for steel strip products. Process parameters need further optimization.

The application tests also need to be optimized to provide a completely fair comparison between conventionally manufactured and additively manufactured products. With further development, great potential is seen in using additive manufacturing partly for material evaluation (doctor blades) but also to be able to use more advanced materials (saw blades).

Approach and implementation:

The project was divided into 5 work packages and a timetable was set for each work package and the project as a whole. During the course of the project, both the timetable and the division of work packages were satisfactorily followed. Because the project was short, some iteration was skipped. If more funds and time had been available, another round of application tests would have been performed to truly provide a fair comparison between materials.