LAUSR

Metal fused filament fabrication (MF 3 ) combines fused filament fabrication and sintering processes to fabricate complex metal components. In MF 3 , powder-polymer mixtures are printed to produce green parts that are subsequently debound and sintered. In the design for MF 3 (DfMF 3 ), it is important to understand how material properties of the filament affect processability, part quality, and ensuing properties. However, the materials property database of powder-polymer materials to perform DfMF 3 simulations is very limited, and experimental measurements can be expensive and time-consuming. This work investigates models that can predict the powder-polymer material properties that are required as input parameters for simulating the MF 3 using the Digimat-AM ® process design platform for fused filament fabrication. Ti-6Al-4V alloy (56–60 vol.%) and a multicomponent polymer binder were used to predict properties such as density, specific heat, thermal conductivity, Young’s modulus, and viscosity. The estimated material properties were used to conduct DfMF 3 simulations to understand material-processing-geometry interactions.