Shape deposition manufacturing of 316L parts via feedstock extrusion and green-state milling

Hybrid processes involving additive and subtractive manufacturing have been showing big potential in producing parts with special engineered properties. Concurrently, the Extrusion Freeform Fabrication (EFF) is growing by showing the capacity to produce complex near-net shape parts made of various metallic and ceramic materials at low production and machine costs. A new Shape Deposition Manufacturing (SDM) is presented, integrating milling technology within a parallel kinematic EFF machine, for producing finished AISI316L parts. With this SDM implementation, the accuracy and the surface quality of the green-state components, as well as the geometrical features generation capacity of standard EFF, is considerably improved.