Metals-based additive manufacturing (AM) encompasses several different technologies that enable the controlled fusing, melting, and consolidation of precursor materials into metal 3D parts and structures, enabling complex geometry and material designs. Metal Binder Jetting Additive Manufacturing (BJAM) is a sintered-based technology with higher production rates of small to medium sized parts compared to powder bed fusion technologies. The goal of this research opportunity is to develop new methods for their integration into machine, process, or part qualification and providing benchmarking datasets for model validation to support industry adoption and standards development of metal BJAM.

NIST has researched other AM technologies such as L-PBF over 10 years, and potential applicants can utilize and build upon NIST's repertoire of instruments, facilities, ongoing research, and interdisciplinary network of scientists and engineers involved in this subject.  Applicants may tailor their proposals based on the following topics of interest:

 Relationships between powder characteristics, process metrics, and final part quality.

• Develop metrics for powder layer characteristics.
• Develop test artifacts for geometric changes between green parts and sintered parts.
• Assess methods for calibration and characterization of commercial BJAM machines.
• Evaluate process monitoring methods for metals BJAM.
• Develop and conduct benchmarking experiments and datasets for model validation of BJAM.

key words

additive manufacturing; metal powder; metrology; qualification; binder jetting; sintering

Citizenship:  Open to U.S. citizens

Level:  Open to Postdoctoral applicants