Rheology and Curability Characterization of Photosensitive Slurries for 3D Printing of Si3N4 Ceramics

Xingbang Li,Hongan Xi,Xiaoguang Li,Ning Liu,Ruixin Ma,Yusen Duan,Jingxian Zhang,Jinhua Jiang

doi:10.3390/app10186438

Abstract

Among a series of 3D printing techniques, stereolithography provides a new route to produce ceramic architectures with the advantages of high-precision and short cycle time. However, up to now the stereolithography of non-oxide ceramics still face complex and difficult problems. This work focused on the analysis of rheological and curing ability of Si3N4 photocurable slurries. The effects of monomer type, coarse silicon powder, solid loading and ambient temperature on the rheological behavior were intensively studied. The relationships between powder characteristic (involving refractive index, absorbance and the introduce of coarse silicon powder), monomer type and curing ability were discussed in detail. It is expected that this study may benefit the development of Si3N4 or other non-oxide ceramic slurries for stereolithography.

Highlights

Due to the growing increase of the high-performance and complex-shaped ceramic parts demands from advanced technology areas, much more attention is being paid to the ceramic additive manufacturing techniques which can fabricate physical parts in a discrete point-by-point, line-by-line or layer-by-layer additive manner [7]
Involving photopolymerization of ceramic suspensions to pattern the layers has the advantages of high-precision and short cycle time [8]
It uses a projector to selectively expose an entire cross-sectional slice from CAD software on the photosensitive resin surface at each given time, which shows faster build speeds than early stereolithography technology in which the surface of the resin is scanned by a laser beam [9]

Summary

Introduction

Due to the growing increase of the high-performance and complex-shaped ceramic parts demands from advanced technology areas, much more attention is being paid to the ceramic additive manufacturing techniques which can fabricate physical parts in a discrete point-by-point, line-by-line or layer-by-layer additive manner [7]. Involving photopolymerization of ceramic suspensions to pattern the layers has the advantages of high-precision and short cycle time [8].

Methods

Results

Conclusion