Electrophotographic printing of part and binder powders

Abstract

A solid freeform fabrication (SFF) technique is described where powder is deposited layer‐by‐layer using electrophotographic printing. In the electrophotography process, powder is picked up and deposited using an electrostatically charged surface. A test bed was designed and constructed to study the application of electrophotography to SFF. It can precisely deposit powder in the desired shape on each layer. A polymer toner powder was used to build small components by thermally fusing each layer of printed powder using a hot compaction plate. The feasibility of 3D printing using this approach was also studied by printing a binder powder using electrophotography on to a part powder bed.

Citation

Kumar, A.V., Dutta, A. and Fay, J.E. (2004), "Electrophotographic printing of part and binder powders", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 7-13. https://doi.org/10.1108/13552540410512480