Enabling accessible additive manufacturing of alumina ceramics through formulation design
Athanasios Goulas, Basar Ozkan, Annapoorani Ketharam, Sina Saremi‐Yarahmadi, Bala Vaidhyanathan
Abstract
Additive manufacturing has shown tremendous potential for shaping advanced ceramic materials to meet the needs of both industry and research and development. However, widespread adoption of the technology is hindered by challenges related to ceramic resin formulation. This study presents the first demonstration of high-solids-loading ceramic resin suspensions designed for 3D printing with low-cost digital light processing printers, removing barriers to wider adoption by academia and industry and enabling the scale-up of advanced ceramics such as alumina parts. Photocurable ceramic resins of pure α-Al 2 O 3 with a 48 vol% solids loading exhibited optimum rheological behaviour, making them suitable for both low-cost and high-end printers alike, and produced green bodies with a tensile strength of 47.6 ± 0.53 MPa. Following thermal binder removal and sintering at 1650 °C for 4 h, all samples, including those with a wide range of complex geometries, achieved a high relative density of 98.5 ± 0.5 % TD without any macroscopic defects.