Effect of Feed Metal Flow Rate on Low-cost Plasma Atomizer for Fabricating 316L Stainless Steel Powder
Published at : 16 Dec 2019
Volume : IJtech
Vol 10, No 8 (2019)
DOI : https://doi.org/10.14716/ijtech.v10i8.3476
Dharmanto., Supriadi, S., Baskoro, A.S. 2019. Effect of Feed Metal Flow Rate on Low-cost Plasma Atomizer for Fabricating 316L Stainless Steel Powder. International Journal of Technology. Volume 10(8), pp. 1593-1601
| Dharmanto | Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, Kampus UI Depok, Depok 16424, Indonesia |
| Sugeng Supriadi | Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, Kampus UI Depok, Depok 16424, Indonesia |
| Ario Sunar Baskoro | Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, Kampus UI Depok, Depok 16424, Indonesia |
The low-cost plasma atomizer in the present
study successfully synthesized stainless steel spherical powder using an energy
source of less than 3 kVA. Repeated testing was conducted to examine the
resulting spherical powder, among other observations, using a digital
microscope (Dino-Lite AM4115), scanning electron microscopy (SEM-FEI-Inspect
F50), and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). To ensure the purity of the
resulting 316L stainless steel spherical powder, EDS was used for qualitative
and quantitative elemental analysis. The results showed that the 316L stainless
steel spherical powder particles varied in size from 26 µm to 180 µm with
average particle diameters of approximately 82.6 µm, making them ideal for
biomedical applications. The results of the feed metal flow rate on the powder
weight percentages for particle sizes <50 µm for 2 mm3/s feed
metal flow, 3 mm3/s feed metal flow, and 4 mm3/s feed
metal flow were 26.04%, 28.04%, and 13.09%, respectively. It is possible that
this could occur because greater metal flow rates require greater plasma energy
to form liquid metal droplets, so that a lower metal flow rate at the same
energy consumption makes it possible to produce more metal powder in smaller
particles.
Plasma atomizer; Powder technology; Spherical particle; Stainless steel powder
The
metal manufacturing industry is currently interested in developing metal powder
technology for production cost efficiency. One of the applications of metal
powder technology is as a feedstock for metal
injection molding (MIM) (Suharno et al., 2019; Supriadi et al.,
2019). MIM can produce lower surface roughness values ??compared
to investment casting (Suharno et al., 2018). MIM is advantageous mainly due to its
significant technological cost savings compared with the use of machinery (Schieleper, 2006; Supriadi et al.,
2015). Metal powder technology enables reductions in waste
material production. Metal powder technology can be classified as a green
technology because it can reduce more residual waste material than other
conventional fabrication technologies such as five-axis CNC machining (Higashitani et al., 2019). At this time, the atomization process is
a suitable choice for producing metal powder because atomization is capable of
producing large amounts of powder with high purity (Boulos, 2004). Atomization processes for making metal
powder include water atomization, gas atomization (Zhao et al., 2007), centrifugal atomization (Sungkhaphaitoon et al., 2013), plasma atomization, and plasma rotating
electrodes process atomization (Dawes et al., 2015).
The
atomization process that uses a plasma arc has a high heat source density that
can melt various
A plasma atomizer is capable of producing a powder with
particle diameters of 50 µm (Chen et
al., 2018). Powder with particles of this size can be applied as the
primary raw material for making medical devices (Grenier & Allaire, 1997; Baskoro & Supriadi, 2019). One of the characteristics of high-quality metal powder is the
perfect spherical shapes of the particles and a narrow size distribution, which
can improve the flowability of the powder.
The current challenge of
using plasma atomization is its high cost, partly because the process requires
a large energy source. The energy sources used generally have a power of
approximately 20 kVA-600 kVA (Tsantrizos et al., 1998; Dignard & Boulos, 2000; Boulos, 2004; Dawes et al., 2015). In the present study, a
plasma atomizer with low-cost equipment was designed and built as a solution to
the high cost of plasma atomization. A plasma atomizer was fabricated with a
power of 3 kVA without the need to use a melt bath, so the plasma atomization
process is faster than the gas atomization or water atomization processes. The
plasma atomization process has been made to produce stainless steel spherical
powder particles with a diameter of less than 50 µm.
The results of the experiments in this study show that the plasma atomizer successfully synthesized the spherical metal powder using an energy source of less than 3 kVA. The plasma atomizer can produce perfectly spherical stainless steel powder particles. The sizes of the resulting 316L stainless steel spherical powder particles vary from 26 µm to 180 µm. The average particle diameter is approximately 82.6 µm. The results of the flow rate on the powder weight percentages at particle sizes <50 µm for 2 mm3/s feed metal flow, 3 mm3/s feed metal flow, and 4 mm3/s feed metal flow are 26.04%, 28.04%, and 13.09%, respectively. It is possible that this could occur because greater metal flow rates require greater plasma energy to form liquid metal droplets, so that a lower metal flow rate makes it possible to produce more metal powder in smaller particles. The resulting 316L stainless steel spherical powder is likely to be used in biomedical manufacturing applications. Based on the above research, fascinating research could be conducted to find the optimal parameters in the plasma atomization in order to produce particle sizes that are suitable for biomedical equipment manufacturing applications.
This research was
supported by the Ministry of Research and Technology of the Republic of
Indonesia through the Excellent Applied Research in Higher Education scheme
(contract number: NKB-1744/ UN2.R3.1/ HKP.05.00/ 2019).
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