Additive Manufacturing of SiC Ceramics with Complicated Shapes Using the FDM Type 3D-Printer

Hisaya Masuda,Mikito Kitayama,Yoshio Ohta

doi:10.4236/msce.2019.72001

Hisaya Masuda, Mikito Kitayama + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4236/msce.2019.72001

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Abstract

Silicon carbide (SiC) ceramics have excellent properties and widely used for high temperature applications. So far, joining techniques have been applied to fabricate large SiC ceramics with complicated shapes. In this work, the additive manufacturing (AM) technique was examined to fabricated SiC ceramics with complicated hollow structures using the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) type 3D-printer. To mold the hollow structure for the applications such as heat exchangers, the “support-less” condition must be achieved. Thus, extruded SiC-phenol resin compounds must be cured immediately after molding to keep the molded shapes. To increase the thermal conductivity of the SiC compounds, the combinations of commercial SiC powders with different average diameters were examined for increasing the volume fraction of SiC particles to the phenol resin. SiC compounds with optimized rheological properties for the modified FDM-type 3D-printer were successfully obtained.

Highlights

Silicon Carbide (SiC) ceramics for high temperature and wear-resistant applications have steadily increased due to their excellent properties such as high chemical and thermal resistance, high wear resistance, high stiffness, high thermal conductivity, low thermal expansion, and low density [1]
This study aims to optimize the rheological properties of the Silicon carbide (SiC)-phenol resin compound for the modified Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) type 3D-printer to achieve the continuous hollow structure by examining the particle size distribution of SiC powders
Two SiC powders with different particle sizes were mixed around this ratio to increase the volume fraction of the SiC powder, to decrease the viscosity of the compound, and to increase the thermal conductivity of the compound

Summary

Introduction

Silicon Carbide (SiC) ceramics for high temperature and wear-resistant applications have steadily increased due to their excellent properties such as high chemical and thermal resistance, high wear resistance, high stiffness, high thermal conductivity, low thermal expansion, and low density [1]. Ceramics are produced through a series of processing such as mixing the raw mate-. SiC ceramics have been fabricated through the solid-state sintering, liquid-phase sintering or reaction-sintering processes using the pressureless-sintering or hot-pressing methods. The reaction sintering has advantages over the other methods, because it could make dense sintered bodies at relatively low temperature and could be sintered “near net shape” [2] [3]

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