Colloquium announcement
Faculty of Engineering Technology
Department Production Technology (MS3)
Master programme Mechanical Engineering
As part of his / her master assignment
Eikelboom, W. (Wessel)
will hold a speech entitled:
Towards FSEAM-based recycling of AA5083 aluminium chips
Date | 29-10-2025 |
Time | 13:00 |
Room | HT 500B |
Summary
Additive manufacturing (AM) has become a valuable option in the arsenal of production processes for various industries. The complex achievable geometry in a wide range of materials, combined with its customizability and short lead times, has manifested itself through a variety of different AM technologies. For metals, most processes involve layer-by-layer fusion in which some form of feedstock material, e.g., in powder or wire form, is molten using a high-power energy source. The part build-up is gradually realised through solidification of the molten feedstock. The presence of the liquid state in these fusion-based processes results in a variety of effects and challenges which can negatively affect the final parts' properties, impose design limitations, or increase the complexity of the AM process itself.
Solid-state processing implies the absence of the liquid phase and thus solidification-related defects. A variety of solid-state processes are on the rise, including AM variants. The Friction Screw Extrusion Additive Manufacturing (FSEAM) process developed at the University of Twente is one of these processes. The process is able to print high-quality, defect-free parts with favourable microstructure and good mechanical properties from conventionally unprintable aluminium alloys.
The primary production as well as conventional methods of recycling of aluminium require a large amount of energy and thus will result in significant emissions. Furthermore, in several industries, e.g., aerospace, large amounts of aluminium scrap are produced by extensive material removal through machining. Therefore, the question was raised whether the energy-efficient method of FSEAM could be used for recycling aluminium scrap and to directly produce high-quality components from it.
This graduation assignment investigated the possibilities of recycling aluminium machining scrap through the existing FSEAM setup. A method was devised to be able to process the scrap through the current setup without significant adaptations. Subsequently, the first steps towards printing of the recycled feedstock were made through a more basic variant of the process called Friction Screw Extrusion (FSE). Experiments were performed, and the extruded material was analysed through a wide selection of different analyses assessing the presence of defects, microstructure, and mechanical properties.
Assessment committee |
chair Signature d.d. |
|
Dr. ir. T. Bor Dr. M. Luckabauer Dr. ir. C. Goulas |
(chair) (supervisor) (internal member) |