Our project holds each layer of iron powder on the printing surface by inducing a uniform magnetic field through the printing volume.
The result of this project is an adaptation of LPBF that solves the challenges of additive manufacturing in a microgravity environment.
A mechanism of two parallel Helmholtz coils were employed to control the iron powder because of its scalability and uniform magnetic field properties.
The coil mechanism was designed to integrate into a custom-built LPBF machine to be used on the surface of Psyche.
The system holds iron powder on the printing surface, counteracting the negative effects of microgravity.
The coil system can be scaled to any size by adjusting the radius, number of turns, wire diameter, and operating current.
The coil system produces a uniform magnetic field throughout the print bed. This holds each layer of powder level, ideal for LPBF.
To secure ferromagnetic powder to the printing plane, the ideal field strength is uniform throughout the entire printing surface region.
A theoretical Helmholtz coil produces nearly 95% magnetic field strength uniformity within the chosen printing surface region.
A cross-sectional slice of the magnetic field in the center plane through each coil illuminates the change in field strength when traversing vertically and horizontally. The strongest field is found at the coils themselves, while the desired field is found at 0 [m] along the z-axis and between -0.01 [m] and 0.01 [m] along the x-axis.
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