Liudmyla Lisova

Project

I am working on a project for near-net-shape production of steel molds using indirect additive manufacturing. This project aims to develop fundamental concepts for the implementation of indirect additive manufacturing of high-quality steel molds and to implement them practically on a laboratory scale. Steel molds are usually machined by the toolmaker from steel blocks, which inevitably leads to large material and energy consumption. Alternative concepts, such as direct additive manufacturing of molds, are also being used, but due to the high cost of the metal powders and the energy input, such approaches are used only for inserts. So the idea is to make a steel mold by sand casting. I am investigating the metallurgy and properties of the steels that could be used for the production of steel molds. It is important to choose the right steel, which will have sufficient characteristics for casting and further use of the finished steel mold. The casted steel molds only require a small amount of machining to the final mold contour. In this way, it should be possible to efficiently combine the advantages of casting and additive manufacturing.