Indirect Solid Freeform Fabrication of Complicated Ceramic Parts Based on Stereolithography and Gelcasting

摘要

It is difficult to fabricate complicated ceramic parts with conventional manufacturing methods such as injection molding and slip casting. In this paper, an indirect solid freeform fabrication process based on Stereolithography (SL) and gelcasting to shape complicated ceramic parts. A lost resin mold with negative image of part was first fabricated by SL. And then aqueous ceramic slurry with high solids loading and low viscosity were prepared and poured into the resin mold, a wet gelcast body was obtained by in-situ polymerized, and the vacuum freeze-drying technology was used to eliminate the deionized water in the gelcast body for improving efficiency and decrease drying shrinkage. Based on the thermogravimetric analysis results of resin mold and gel ceramic body, a sintering process was carried out to remove mold, organic binder and to sinter ceramic. Finally, the desired ceramic part was successfully fabricated to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the novel process.