Infill Pattern Characteristic of H13 Tool Steel Additive Manufacturing from Printing to Sintering

Abstract Additive manufacturing (AM) has gained significant prominence in the fabrication of complex metal components, with H13 tool steel becoming the material of choice due to its excellent mechanical properties. This article investigates the important aspects of infill pattern in the H13 tool steel filament-based additive manufacturing process, from the initial printing stage to the sintering stage. The study began with a cube design with solid, triangular, and gyroid infill patterns manufactured with a metal 3D printer from H13 tool steel. Size and weight observations are carried out on printing, washing and sintering results. The surface quality of the sintering results was also observed. The results show that the shrinkage from printing to sintering in the volume and mass of the three infill patterns is relatively the same. The largest shrinkage occurred in the gyroid pattern with 7.33% mass shrinkage and 38.71% volume shrinkage. The smallest shrinkage occurred in the solid pattern with 7.19% mass shrinkage and 37.96% volume shrinkage. Meanwhile, the surface quality is around 9.95 μm on the side surface. This investigation provides valuable insight into optimizing filler pattern selection to achieve desired sizes and properties in H13 tool steel parts.