Development of Ceramic 3D/4D Printing in China
Xinya Lu, Guo Liu, Jian Lü
Abstract
China derives its name from its rich legacy of traditional ceramic arts, which has inspired generations of people in China and beyond to improve their ceramic processing skills. The review categorises the various ceramic additive manufacturing techniques developed in China into dot-by-dot, line-by-line, and area-by-area additive manufacturing techniques, according to their corresponding dimensional printing strategies. These techniques are categorized according to ISO standards, with an overview of representative achievements by Chinese research groups for each method. The review also summarizes and compares materials, printing parameters, and product properties in those studies, highlighting differences in printing speeds among different printing strategies. In addition, milestones in contemporary ceramic four-dimensional (4D) printing are illustrated in terms of the new material (4D printing elastomer-derived ceramics), new process (4D additive–subtractive manufacturing of ceramics), and new function (4D printing shape memory ceramics). Finally, the prospects for ceramic printing and its applications are discussed.