Pressure Assisted Extrusion Chamber

• Open Source Prior art for low temperature metal extrusion
• Use case - induction heated cast metal casting
• Concept: use a slow controlled trickle of molten, low temperature metal such as Zinc Aluminum Alloys (ZA)to pour into plaster of paris casting forms made by melted out 3D printed forms. Allows for automated casting of part using a 3D printing extrusion type of approach
• 3D Printer prints the plastic casting patterns for making gypsum molds
• 3D printer has a high temperature heater block, possibly induction based, which melts the metal.
• The trick here is to use pressure assist.
• In plastic 3D printing, the plastic pushes molten plastic through the extruder.
• In metal-melt 3D printing (non-welding-based), metal melts in a heated chamber, and because it is so liquid, it will just flow out without needing to be pushed.
• A possibe way to deposit a 3D print would be to dribble droplets or a small stream.
• A small precise stream could be used to fill small cavities in casting applications using 3D printer-generated molds.
• Droplets could be used for additive manufacturing, but the substrate would probably have to be kept at high temperature. This is where precise induction heating could be useful, or where small lasers (4W) could be used to assist in fusion using hot substrates. This would enable low energy laser-assisted fusion
• The question is: what is the behavior of metal droplets in 3D printing?

Links

• Method of magnetohydrodynamic droplet ejection at khz-scale droplet frequency is already known - [1]
• Patent on MHD metal deposition - [2]