Binder jet additive manufacturing of silicon carbide solar reactor

Technical Report · Sun Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 2025

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2572190· OSTI ID:2572190

Aguirre, Trevor ^[1]; Elliott, Amy ^[1]; Cramer, Corson ^[1]; Nawaz, Kashif ^[1]; Brennan, Bradley J. ^[2]

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1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
2. Dimensional Energy, Inc., Houston, TX (United States)

Achieving high powder packing density is critical in binder jet additive manufacturing (BJAM), as it directly influences the final part density, mechanical properties, and sintering behavior. Multi-modal powder blends, which combine particles of different sizes, have been explored as a strategy to optimize packing efficiency and minimize defects. In this study, bimodal and trimodal powder blends were obtained by mixing silicon carbide powder in three different sizes. These results show that increased powder density is achievable with bimodal powder blends but is reduced in trimodal blends, and it was found that a 13% increase in the powder tap density was achieved using a bimodal blend of powder. The powder size distribution of the bimodal blend was measured at various stages during binder jet additive manufacturing and, no measurable powder separation occurred even after eight prints. Overall, this study shows limited advantage to trimodal powder blends but good promise for trimodal blends for increasing printed density while maintaining reusability in the binder jet process.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Dimensional Energy, Inc., Houston, TX (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 2572190
• Report Number(s): ORNL-TM--2025-3964; NFE2209377
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE