Ceramic 3D Printing
co-innovation project

About

Additive manufacturing of ceramic materials is still in its early stages compared to that of polymeric and metallic materials.

In this two-year co-innovation project, the consortium is targeting a fast, reliable, and flexible manufacturing process for ceramic materials.

Background

Ceramics have outstanding mechanical, chemical and thermal properties, and while this is an advantage for the products, it is a challenge for traditional manufacturing, for example machining, that is slow and expensive.

Additive manufacturing will minimize or eliminate the need of machining, and therefore will have a very high impact on broader use of ceramics, since shape is no longer a limitation. The design of a component can be based on the functionality needed, and not limited by the restrictions of traditional manufacturing techniques or costs.

Challenge

Additive manufacturing methods for polymers and metals can be applied to some extent to ceramics also, but this requires very precise control of powder-based processing of ceramics, and deep understanding of the special features of ceramic materials.

There are already some techniques suitable for ceramic materials in the market, but several challenges limit their use heavily, like very slow material development, component performance variation due to material defects and very slow total manufacturing cycle.

Solution

This project has a holistic approach, which focuses on identification of root causes of the manufacturing bottlenecks.

The aim is to combine sub-processing steps so that the total process will be reliable and flexible. This approach requires deep understanding of interconnected relations of materials science and technology, equipment technology and automation.

By this holistic approach the know-how for reliable and fast additive manufacturing of ceramic materials can be achieved and implemented.