Direct ink writing of continuous SiO2 fiber reinforced wave-transparent ceramics

Zhe Zhao,Guoxiang Zhou,Zhihua Yang,Yu Zhou,Xianqi Cao,Dechang Jia

doi:10.1007/s40145-020-0380-y

Abstract

This article reports the first example of 3D printed continuous SiO2 fiber reinforced wave-transparent ceramic composites via an adaptation of direct ink writing technology to improve the mechanical and dielectric properties of ceramics. The ceramic inks showed good printability by adding nano-SiO2 powder. The effective continuous fiber-reinforced printing progress was achieved through the design and optimization of the coaxial needle structures by finite element simulation. After printing, the continuous fibers were evenly and continuously distributed in the matrix ceramics and the high molding precision for fiber reinforced composite was kept. It is demonstrated that 10 vol% continuous SiO2 fiber improved the bending strength of ceramics by about 27% better than that of the ceramics without fiber and the dielectric performance has also been greatly improved. The novel method unravels the potential of direct ink writing of continuous fiber reinforced wave-transparent ceramics with complex structures and improved properties.

Highlights

Phosphate is a kind of low dielectric constant ceramics applied to high-temperature structural and wavetransparent applications in aerospace and other fields, owing to its impressive properties such as mechanical strength, thermal stability at high temperature, and low cost [1,2,3]
In order to optimize the geometry of the coaxial needle, a three-dimensional fluid-mechanics model was built by finite element simulation
Based on the above analysis, it can be entailed that continuous fiber reinforced wave-transparent ceramics can be well prepared through direct ink writing (DIW) 3D printing technology, and the continuous SiO2 fiber can contribute to the performance of wave-transparent ceramics both in mechanical and dielectric properties

Summary

Introduction

Phosphate is a kind of low dielectric constant ceramics applied to high-temperature structural and wavetransparent applications in aerospace and other fields, owing to its impressive properties such as mechanical strength, thermal stability at high temperature, and low cost [1,2,3]. We propose a DIW based 3D printing method for the integrated manufacturing of continuous fiber reinforced wave-transparent ceramics by using the viscosity and friction of the inks as the power source of the continuous fiber extrusion for the first time. In the case of continuous SiO2 fiber being used as the enhanced phase, and SiO2/phosphate material as matrix material, through the design of the nozzle, together with the finite element simulation of flow fields internal, the integrated molding of the continuous SiO2 fiber reinforced SiO2/phosphate composites are achieved

Experimental details

Results and discussion

Conclusions