3D Printing of Polymer-Bonded Rare-Earth Magnets with a Variable Magnetic Compound Fraction for a Predefined Stray Field

Christian Huber, Claas Abert, Florian Bruckner, Martin Groenefeld, Stephan Schuschnigg, Iulian Teliban, Christoph Vogler, Gregor Wautischer, Roman Windl, DIeter Suess

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

56 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Additive manufacturing of polymer-bonded magnets is a recently developed technique, for single-unit production, and for structures that have been impossible to manufacture previously. Also, new possibilities to create a specific stray field around the magnet are triggered. The current work presents a method to 3D print polymer-bonded magnets with a variable magnetic compound fraction distribution. This means the saturation magnetization can be adjusted during the printing process to obtain a required external field of the manufactured magnets. A low-cost, end-user 3D printer with a mixing extruder is used to mix permanent magnetic filaments with pure polyamide (PA12) filaments. The magnetic filaments are compounded, extruded, and characterized for the printing process. To deduce the quality of the manufactured magnets with a variable magnetic compound fraction, an inverse stray field framework is developed. The effectiveness of the printing process and the simulation method is shown. It can also be used to manufacture magnets that produce a predefined stray field in a given region. This opens new possibilities for magnetic sensor applications. This setup and simulation framework allows the design and manufacturing of polymer-bonded permanent magnets, which are impossible to create with conventional methods.
Original languageEnglish
Article number9419
Number of pages8
JournalScientific reports (e-only)
Volume7.2017
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Aug 2017

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