Evaluation of the direct inkjet printing method for the fabrication of three-dimensional ceramic components

• Evaluierung des direkten Tintenstrahldruckverfahrens zur Herstellung drei-dimensionaler keramischer Bauteile

Özkol, Emre; Telle, Rainer (Thesis advisor)

Aachen : Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University (2012)
Dissertation / PhD Thesis

Aachen, Techn. Hochsch., Diss., 2012

Abstract

This thesis aims to investigate and show the feasibility of the direct inkjet printing (DIP) method to fabricate ceramic components for structural applications. For this purpose, first a DIP system, which is based on a desktop inkjet printer, is developed and used to manufacture ceramic components made of 3Y-TZP. Second, ceramic inks containing > 20 vol.-% of ceramic particles as well as a carbon ink containing ~13.5 vol.-% of carbon black particles are developed and used for the fabrication of two-dimensional and three-dimensional ceramic objects using the DIP method. These inks are characterised in terms of viscosity, surface tension, zeta potential, density, particle size distribution, and the dimensionless numbers Re, We, Ca, and Oh. The influence of the ink characteristics on the drop ejection dynamics and on the drop properties is investigated by analysing arrays of deposited single drops. Ceramic demonstration objects are DIP-fabricated and investigated in terms of shape accuracy and mechanical properties to show the feasibility of the DIP method for the manufacturing of structural ceramic components. The carbon ink developed is used as a fugitive support, which is removed during sintering, in order to generate components of complex geometrical shape. The components are sintered and promising mechanical characteristics of the ceramic components are obtained by 4-point bending (4PB) and ball-on-3-balls (B3B) tests. As a result, the DIP method was shown to be feasible for the fabrication of ceramic components with good shape accuracy as well as excellent mechanical properties.

Institutions

• Chair of Ceramics and Institute of Mineral Engineering [524110]
• Division of Materials Science and Engineering [520000]