Ultrasonic Depowdering: A new tool in the industrial powder removal toolbox

THE PRINCIPLES FOR AUTOMATED DEPOWDERING:
Automated depowdering is a relatively new discipline in additive manufacturing. Since Solukon was founded and the world’s first depowdering system, the SFM-AT800-S, was launched in 2015, a number of successful principles have become established on the market. The most important of these include:

1. Depowdering must take place in a protected atmosphere
Health risks from fine dust and the danger of explosions are effectively controlled only when using a sealed process chamber. For reactive materials, the process chamber is inerted with a protective gas.

2. Depowdering must be reproducible
This means achieving consistent cleaning results for identical components (i.e., repeatability). What may sound obvious or like a no-brainer is actually a standard that can only truly be maintained with automated powder removal using Solukon.

3. The best cleaning result is achieved through the combination of rotation and vibration excitation
(Endless) rotation around two axes and targeted vibration excitation make the adhering powder flow within internal channels. The excitation intensity of vibration can be adjusted in Solukon’s powder removal systems. However, how the pneumatically generated vibrations actually act on the part is highly individual and depends on the geometry of the component. What matters is the result: the powder behaves like a liquid and flows out of internal channels. Powder clumps are broken up by a high-frequency knocker, which can also be activated when needed.

Until recently, the combination of pneumatic vibrations and a knocker to stimulate vibration would have been on this list of basic principles for depowdering. This is because pneumatic vibration units are reliable, cost-effective and highly efficient. However, they consume a lot of compressed air and are difficult to control, which can lead to problems with sensitive parts, due to exceeding the resonance frequency could damage sensitive structures.