The official website of the United States HRL Laboratory reported that researchers in the laboratory have made a major breakthrough in the field of 3D printing technology. They have developed a new technology that uses 3D printing to produce super-strong ceramic materials that can not only have complex shapes, but also withstand high temperatures of more than 1,700 degrees Celsius, which is expected to play a role in the aerospace and micro-electromechanical fields in the future.
Ceramics have many useful properties, such as high strength, high hardness and resistance to corrosion and wear, but they also have an "Achilles heel" - they cannot easily be made into complex shapes. 3D printing technology can make ceramics have complex shapes, but the extremely high melting point of ceramics limits the use of this method. At present, several ceramic 3D printing technologies are not only inefficient, but also the printed products often have cracks. But now, thanks to a sophisticated light-curing rapid prototyping process, HRL Lab researchers have 3D printed compact, high-temperature resistant ceramic parts with a variety of shapes.
In the new study, chemical engineer Zack Ecker and chemist Chao-yin Zhou created a resin formulation of silicon, nitrogen and oxygen that hardened when exposed to a beam of ultraviolet light inside a 3D printer. The resin, known as a ceramic precursor, can be 3D printed into parts of various shapes and sizes, and the printed material is transformed into a high-strength, fully dense ceramic when overheated.
According to Tobias Scheidler, a materials scientist at the HRL lab, the new method is 100 to 1,000 times more efficient than previous 3D ceramic printing techniques and 10 times stronger than similar materials.
The researchers believe that this super-strong, high-temperature resistant ceramic could be used in the manufacture of large parts in jet engines and ultra-supersonic aircraft, as well as complex components in micro-electro-mechanical systems, such as tiny sensors, and many other fields.