Binder Jetting of Si₃N₄ Ceramics with Different Porosity

Abstract

This article presents the results of the binder jetting technology application for the silicon nitride ceramics production. A modified version of the Plan-B 3D printer with an epoxy-based binder was used for silicon green bodies preforming. Silicon powder was pre-coated with epoxy resin, and the curing agent was added during 3-D printing of green bodies using a standard cartridge. Curing and removal of organics was carried out during the high-temperature vacuum drying of the printed preforms. Reaction-bonded silicon nitride was obtained by using pressureless sintering. An additional compaction of green bodies is proposed to reduce the porosity of green bodies and sintered ceramics. It is shown that the proposed methods allows to improve the mechanical properties of sintered specimens.

An Overview on 3D Printing of Ceramics Using Binder Jetting Process

“…In addition, as shown in Figure 3, the thick SiC ceramics HX body with channels has been effectively prototyped via binder-jetting printing, demonstrating the possibility of replacing conventional metal HXs with these devices. The investigation of silicon nitride ceramics by Rabinskiy et al [17] using the BJ procedure and pressureless sintering with the application of the suggested epoxy-based binder demonstrates sufficiently good mechanical characteristics without any extra approaches for the post-processing of the samples.…”

Additive manufacturing of silicon nitride ceramics: A review of advances and perspectives

“…The porosity of the porous Si 3 N 4 sample prepared with epoxy‐based binders was reduced to 30%–40%. They proposed to further reduce the porosity of green bodies and improved mechanical properties by additional compaction of green bodies 82 . After additional compaction, the porosity of the porous Si 3 N 4 ceramic decreased from 30%–40% to 15%–25%, and the flexural strength increased from 53 ± 2 to 77 ± 5 MPa, respectively.…”

“…Fortunately, the research on the AM of Si 3 N 4 ceramic has received more and more attentions recently, and attempts have been on the rise. AM technologies of Si 3 N 4 ceramics mainly include (1) powder bed fusion (including selective laser sintering [SLS], and selective laser melting [SLM], 43–49 and so on), (2) photopolymerization (usually including stereolithography apparatus [SLA], 50 laser‐induced slip [LIS] casting, 51 digital light processing [DLP], 52–65 liquid crystal display [LCD], 66,67 and so on); (3) material extrusion (usually including direct ink writing [DIW] or robocasting, 68–74 fused deposition modeling [FDM], 75–79 and so on); and (4) other AM technologies (including binder jetting [BJ], 80–85 3DP, 86–89 and laminated object manufacturing [LOM] 90–94 ). Schematics of the previous AM technologies for Si 3 N 4 ceramic are illustrated in Figure 2.…”

Ceramic Binder Jetting Additive Manufacturing: A Literature Review on Density

“…Dry mixed, dry ball milled [86] Dry mixed, sieved [80] Wet mixed, (wet ball milled), spray dried [68,100,101,127,128,142,146,148,149,153,155,158] Wet mixed, (wet ball milled), oven dried, dry ball milled [78,130,[135][136][137] Wet mixed, (wet ball milled), freeze dried, dry ball milled, sieved [63,70,71,85,87,88,95] Commercial spray-dried powder [35,129,152,154] 040801-10 / Vol. 142, APRIL 2020 Transactions of the ASME carbide [81], silica [176], and tungsten carbide with cobalt [94]) have been investigated with this method.…”

“…An effective way to increase powder bed density is compaction, during which the externally applied stress exceeds the yield strength of the powder and leads to particle rearrangement [232,233]. Several compaction approaches, including a forward-rotating roller [64,234] and compaction plate [78], have been reported. However, important issues about this layer-by-layer compaction have not been studied.…”