Compared to the common selective laser sintering (SLS) manufacturing method, fused deposition modeling (FDM) seems to be an economical and efficient three-dimensional (3D) printing method for high temperature polymer materials in medical applications. In this work, a customized FDM system was developed for polyether-ether-ketone (PEEK) materials printing. The effects of printing speed, layer thickness, printing temperature and filling ratio on tensile properties were analyzed by the orthogonal test of four factors and three levels. Optimal tensile properties of the PEEK specimens were observed at a printing speed of 60 mm/s, layer thickness of 0.2 mm, temperature of 370 °C and filling ratio of 40%. Furthermore, the impact and bending tests were conducted under optimized conditions and the results demonstrated that the printed PEEK specimens have appropriate mechanical properties.

Amorphous polymers are heavily utilized materials in selective laser sintering (SLS) due to their good dimensional accuracy. However, sintered parts of amorphous polymers cannot be used as functional parts owing to their poor forming performance, including their low relative densities and tensile strength. Therefore, post-processing methods are employed to enhance the mechanical properties of amorphous polymers SLS parts without damaging their relatively high dimensional accuracy. In this study, the forming process of selective laser sintering (SLS) and post-processing on polystyrene (PS) was investigated. The orthogonal experiment was designed to obtain the optimal combination of process parameters. The effect of a single process parameter and the laser volumetric energy density (LVED) on dimension accuracy and warpage of the sintered parts were also discussed. In addition, a three-dimensional (3D) thermal model was developed to analyze the temperature fields of single-layer SLS parts and PS powder sintering mechanism. Then, infiltrating with epoxy resin was employed to enhance the mechanical properties of the PS parts. Good resin-infiltrated formulation was obtained based on the mechanical property tests and fractured surface analysis. This research provides guidance for SLS process and post-processing technology in polymers.

A combination of simulation and experimental approaches to optimize the vacuum carburizing process is necessary to replace the costly experimental trial-and-error method in time and resources. In order to accurately predict the microstructure evolution and mechanical properties of the vacuum carburizing process, a multi-field multi-scale coupled model considering the interaction of temperature, diffusion, phase transformation, and stress was established. Meanwhile, the improved model is combined with the heat treatment software COSMAP to realize the simulation of the low-pressure vacuum carburizing process. The low-pressure vacuum carburizing process of 20CrMo gear steel was simulated by COSMAP and compared with the experimental results to verify the model. The results indicated that the model could quantitatively obtain the carbon concentration distribution, Fe-C phase fraction, and hardness distribution. It can be found that the carbon content gradually decreased from the surface to the center. The surface carbon concentration is relatively high only after the carburizing stage. With the increase in diffusion time, the surface carbon concentration decreases, and the carburized layer depth increases. The simulated surface carbon concentration results and experimental results are in good agreement. However, there is an error between calculations and observations for the depth of the carburized layer. The error between simulation and experiment of the depth of carburized layer is less than 6%. The simulated surface hardness is 34 HV lower than the experimental surface hardness. The error of surface hardness is less than 5%, which indicates that the simulation results are reliable. Furthermore, vacuum carburizing processes with different diffusion times were simulated to achieve the carburizing target under specific requirements. The results demonstrated that the optimum process parameters are a carburizing time of 42 min and a diffusion time of 105 min. This provides reference and guidance for the development and optimization of the vacuum carburizing process.

A diffusion/transformation coupled model has been developed which combines finite difference (FD) model with a phenomenological model. The composition of the different iron-nitrogen(Fe-N) hardening phase can be regard as a function of nitriding time and nitrogen concentration. The diffusion model and transformation model are linked by the limiting nitrogen solubilities and the effective diffusion coefficients. The effect of alloy elements (Cr, Mo, Mn, V, Ni etc.) is considered by introducing an alloy coefficient for limiting nitrogen solubilities and diffusion coefficient. The diffusion/transformation model can predict nitrogen concentration, phase composition and hardness distribution. The model is employed to simulate the nitriding process of SCr420H low-alloy steels. The simulated nitrogen concentration and hardness profiles are consistent with the measured ones. In addition, the predicted depth distributions of iron-nitrogen phase agree well with the available experimental results. Therefore, the comparison shows the reliability of the coupled model. It can be applied to improve the nitriding process parameters.

A mathematical model has been developed to simulate the nitriding process of plain carbon steel, considering the simultaneous diffusion of nitrogen in different iron-nitrogen (Fe-N) phases and the precipitation dynamics of γ' and ε iron-nitride. The model can predict the distribution of nitrogen concentration, volume fraction of Fe-N phases and hardness. Furthermore, a finite element method (FEM) post-process technology is presented to avoid the limit of FEM mesh improvement and time-saving. The uniform-sum-division algorithm is adopted as local refinement algorithm (LRA) of meshes. The modified inverse distance weighting (IDW) method is used to interpolate the FEM simulated results. Then, the nitriding model and post-process technology are incorporated within the framework of the developed FEM code COSMAP (COmputer Simulation of MAnufacturing Process) based on metallo-thermo-mechanical theory. In order to validate the nitriding model and FEM post-process technology, the nitriding process of S30C steel is modeled by COSMAP software. The simulated distributions of nitrogen content and hardness are consistent with the measured ones. In addition, the simulated results at different mesh size are compared for two-dimensional model. It is indicated that the interpolated results agree well with the simulated results of fine mesh model and the experimental ones.