Fused Deposition of Ceramics and Metals : An Overview

Fused Deposition of Ceramics (FDC) and Metals (FDMet) are SFF techniques, based on commercial FDMTM technology, for rapid fabrication of functional ceramic and metal parts from powderlbinder materials. This work demonstrates the possibility of applying FDC and FDMet to a variety of ceramic and metal particulate systems for fabrication of components/parts/devices for wide ranging applications such as tooling, investment casting cores and shells, structural and functional components, etc. Several particulate ceramic and metal systems have been explored for FDC and FDMet. The particulate systems explored vary in particle size from nano-crystalline (WC-Co) to coarse (>100 Jlm Si(2) particles. The material systems explored for FDC and FDMet vary from conventional ceramic and metal systems such as Si02 and stainless steel to advanced materials such as Si3N4 and PZT. FDC and FDMet of such a variety of material systems using a commercial FDMTM system has been made feasible by development of a unique series of binders, as well as optimized FD processing, binder removal techniques and sintering conditions.