Optimizing Lithography-Based Metal Manufacturing For Complex Tungsten Heavy Alloy Components With Tailored Binder Systems

Lithography-based Metal Manufacturing (LMM) is an advanced additive manufacturing technique that produces metal components through photo-polymerisation, followed by debinding and sintering. A key challenge in this process is the penetration of light through the material, as this becomes particularly difficult with darker materials and fine powders like tungsten heavy alloys. To address this, optimised polymeric binder formulations were developed and evaluated for multiple tungsten heavy alloy (WHA) materials such as Densimet® D185 and Inermet® IT180. This led to a robust solution capable of fabricating functional components with intricate geometries and high-resolution features. Characterisation was performed to investigate the influence of polymeric binder on microstructural evolution, density, impurities, and resulting mechanical properties.