Ceramic Additive for Aerospace

Abstract

The cruise altitudes and speed of flight will be higher than ever before for next-generation aerospace applications. While this will enable superior efficiency and reach, especially for military aerospace vehicles, it comes at the cost of harsher environments experienced by the component materials. Ceramic materials are of interest for these applications since they can withstand higher temperatures and harsher environments than many traditional metal or polymer aerospace components. Beyond increased temperature capability, they also offer increased erosion resistance, higher stiffness, lower density, and, in some cases, multi-functional properties. Additive manufacturing (AM) of ceramics offers a more agile manufacturing method to create the complex-shaped components needed for next-generation component designs. Due to the complexities that come with forming dense ceramic materials, the field of AM of ceramics is still in initial stages of adaptation. This chapter will briefly introduce background on the variety of AM routes that exist for forming ceramic materials along with some advantages and disadvantages of each. A more detailed account will be given to some recent advances in AM of ceramics and ceramic matrix composites using the technique of direct ink writing.