Influence of Size Distribution and Particle Interaction on the Packing Behavior of 316L Stainless Steel Powder

The influence of the size distribution and particle interaction on packing behaviors is investigated for water/gas-atomized STS 316L powders with polydisperse and bimodal size distributions. In most cases, the experimentally estimated packing fraction matched well with the results predicted by the Desmond model, which implies that the packing fraction increases with the polydispersity and skewness. When the powder size decreases below similar to 10 mu m, however, the calculation starts to positively deviate from the experimental data, presumably because particle interaction plays a significant role in the powder packing behavior. The Desmond model is modified to consider the effects of particle interaction as well as of size distribution on the packing behavior, and the modified model shows better accordance with the experimental data, particularly for fine powders, than does the original Desmond model.