Deposition manufacturing of three-dimensional objects by spraying the metal droplets

Analysis the basic principles of the metal droplet spray deposition manufacturing technology, the metal droplet with pneumatic drop-on-demand generator has been developed to produce mono-size metal droplets. Suitable conditions for the droplet generator such as pulse width, supply pressure, vent size, ejecting frequency and so on, and the generator can produce molten Sn60Pb40 alloy droplets with uniform diameters (about 0.2 mm) and Stable spray process through a quartz nozzle with an orifice of 0.1 mm diameter. For fabrication a 3D object, a physical model of object was build in CAD system, the slice profile date of the model was generate in the slice software system. Based on slice profile date, the computer-controlled X-Y-Z motion platform was used to move the substrate and coupled with control routine allows automatic droplet ejection to build a 3D object through layer-by-layer formation. A typical example of 3-dimensional models and structures are demonstrated, which showed the developed of metal droplet spray deposition manufacturing system is feasible for rapid prototyping.