Freeform Fabrication of Ceramics by Hot-Melt Ink-Jet Printing
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2 2 2 B. Derby', N. Reis" , K.A.M. Seerden , P.S. Grant , J.R.G. Evans 2'Manchester Materials Science Centre, UMIST, Grosvenor St., Manchester, UK. Department of Materials, University of Oxford, Parks Rd., Oxford, UK. 3 Department of Materials Engineering, Queen Mary and Westfield College, Mile End Rd., London, UK.
ABSTRACT Ink-jet printing is a versatile freeform fabrication technique with a high spatial resolution. By suspending ceramic particles in low melting point organic materials and printing above the melting point, rapid cooling on impact after printing results in rapid layer growth. Current results from a collaborative programme studying the hot wax ink-jet printing of structural ceramic components will be reported. The influence of key fluid properties on the ink-jet deposition process are discussed. INTRODUCTION Ink-jet printing is a mature technology with many applications. Originally developed for graphics applications it is now routinely used for personal printing, commercial printing, marking, micro-dosing, rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing. It has been used for a number of years as a tool for ceramic green body fabrication by the deposition of a binder onto a powder bed [1-3]. Direct ink-jet printing of ceramic slurries is potentially a very versatile method for the manufacture of ceramic parts. There has been substantial work on the ink-jet deposition of ceramic powders in aqueous or alcohol suspensions by Evans and coworkers [4-7], chiefly on the deposition of ZrO2 suspensions. PZT suspensions have also been printed [8]. In all these cases the printer used has been a commercial printer developed for printing on paper. These currently have lateral resolutions up to about 1200 dpi (approximately 20 gm). Ink-jet printing of ceramics using these printers requires the development a ceramic ink with similar fluid properties to the dye or pigment based inks used for graphics applications. These inks dry by evaporation and typically contain only about 5% solids by volume. A second ink-jet printing technology, also originally developed for the graphic arts, is hot-melt or phase change printing. This uses a dye or pigmented suspension, which solidifies on impact cooling. This technology was developed to eliminate the drying cycle with its risk of smudging during printing. The ink-jet deposit forms a splat of much higher aspect ratio than the conventional fluid inks and thus over-printing can be used to build up significant thickness of deposit. It is possible to purchase hot-melt printers for pattern making and object visualisation. These commercial machines are ideally suited for rapid manufacturing research, as they are capable of building solid objects from STL format CAD files. In earlier work [9,10] we successfully demonstrated the feasibility of passing ceramic slurries up to about 20% by volume solids through one of these commercial machines (Modelmaker 6, Sanders Prototype, Wilton, NH, USA).
195 Mat. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. Vol. 625 © 2000 Materials Research Society
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