“As a cutting edge manufacturing methodology, 3D printing or additive manufacturing (AM) brings
much more attention to the fabrication of complex structure, especially in the manufacturing of
metal parts.A number of various metal AM techniques have been studied and commercialized.
However, most of them are expensive and less available, in comparison with Selective Laser Melting
manufactured stainless steel 316L component.The purpose of this Master Thesis is to introduce an
innovative AM technique which focuses on material extrusion-based 3D printing process for creating
a Stainless Steel 316L part using a metal-polymer composite filament. The Stainless Steel test
specimen was printed using an Fused Deposition Modelling based 3D printer loaded with a metal
infused filament, followed by industrial standard debinding and sintering process. Investigation was
performed on the specimen to understand the material properties and their behaviour during the postprocessing method. In addition effects of debinding, sintering and comparison of the test Specimen
before and after debinding stages was also carried out. Metal polymer filaments for 3D printing could
be an alternative way of making metal AM parts.”
Paper published on 21 January 2019