Additive Manufacturing of Stainless Steel/Zirconia Ceramic Composite Parts by Fused Filament Fabrication and Sintering

摘要

Motivation of this work is to demonstrate the combination of additive manufacturing and powder technology for individual metal-ceramic composite parts. 316L-zirconia composites are produced by extrusion of a powder filled thermoplastic feedstock through a hot nozzle (fused filament fabrication, FFF) followed by a debinding and sintering step. The formulation and optimization of different feedstocks to printable filaments and the subsequent debinding and sintering cycles are described. Test parts have been fabricated and characterised in terms of geometrical quality, sinter shrinkage, density, mechanical strength, hardness, and microstructure. A suitable material-process combination has been developed that gives similar microstructure and properties of parts compared to powder injection moulding (PIM) of the same material system. Areas of applications like individual and small series of medical parts are addressed.