17-4PH Stainless Steel (BJT)

17-4PH stainless steel printed by metal binder jetting is a precipitation-hardening martensitic steel formed by depositing binder into a powder bed, then debinding and sintering the part. The green part is fragile and porous and shrinks substantially in sintering, so geometry is scaled to compensate and long spans may need setters. Some residual porosity usually remains, the surface is that of sintered powder, and critical features are often machined. Residual stress and anisotropy are low compared with fusion processes, and final strength depends on sintering and the later aging treatment. It is used for production runs of complex brackets, housings, fittings and tooling.