AddUp
FormUp 350 New Generation/3D printed injection mold with AISI 420 steel
AddUp has announced the release of a material recipe for shaping AISI 420 steel.
It is most commonly used in the field of plastic injection, and can now be used for additive manufacturing.
The material, which AddUp says will enable tooling manufacturers to develop more complex and efficient moulds, is now available for all FormUp 350 New Generation Powder Bed Fusion machines.
According to the company, it is one of the first names in the metal 3D printing sector to offer a recipe for implementing AISI 420 steel. The stainless steel is commonly used for manufacturing moulds for plastic injection moulding, as it has both high mechanical strength and good corrosion resistance.
AddUp says that this development for AISI 420 adds to its portfolio of materials on offer to the tooling sector, which includes 316L stainless steel and Maraging 300 (M300) steel.
“Unlike alloys specially designed for additive manufacturing, which require users to invest in developing suitable post processing, we offer here a widely used grade,” said Frédéric Sar, Materials Manager at AddUp. “With AISI 420, the post-printing operations are identical to those of parts produced by forging. Existing solutions in heat treatments, surface treatments, machining settings, and insert grades are directly applicable to printed parts.”
AddUp says that the ‘quenching/tempering’ type treatments already available raw 420 steel allow printed parts to display tensile strength characteristics in the range of 1350 to 1980 MPa, with elongation at break values of 2 to 10%, depending on the tempering temperature.
The company says that standard surface treatments for the material, such as nitriding, can significantly increase the surface hardness of parts after machining. A key benefit according to AddUp is that the AISI 420 alloy does not contain cobalt or nickel, making it compatible with the requirements of the REACH directive.
AddUp recently installed one of its FormUp 350 New Generation PBF machine at the WBA (Aachener Werkzeubau Akademie GmbH), which is Germany’s leading technical centre for tooling. The machine is equipped with AISI 420 stainless steel powder and the newly developed recipe, capable of printing parts with porosity rates below 0.05%, which guarantees durability for moulds subjected to high stress according to AddUp.
The company says that German tool manufacturers can submit application cases and will be supported at all stages of their projects, from assistance in designing optimised moulds to printing parts and studying the feasibility of mass production. A project using AISI 420 has already been completed by the Siebenwurst Group.
In December 2022, AddUp announced the launch of a new version of the FormUp 350 designed for printing parts up to 1-metre tall.