Fabrication of functionally graded reaction infiltrated SiC–Si composite by three-dimensional printing (3DP™) process

A review of process development steps for new material systems in three dimensional printing (3DP)

“…To avoid premature solidification due to diffusional solidification of the infiltrant, the infiltration rate can be increased by increasing the particle diameter and infiltrant surface tension, and decreasing the infiltrant viscosity and solid diffusivity [80]. Specific 3DP infiltration examples include infiltration of a gold powder skeleton with a gold eutectic [81], an alumina dental coping with dental glass [75], and carbon powders with silicon to form SiC-Si composites [21].…”

“…Successful realization of a specific 3DP process involves not only the printing process itself, but also the formulation of a suitable combination of a powder and binder material system along with process details for printing and post-processing, both of which play a major role in determining the mechanical properties of the parts produced. While a significant strength of 3DP is the wide range of potentially suitable materials, including polymers [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]; metals [13][14][15]; and ceramics [1,[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]14,[25][26][27][28][29][30] (or anything else that is available as a depositable powder with particle size in a suitable range), creating a specific instantiation of 3DP with a new material combination requires a number of steps: (1) formulation of a powder, (2) selection of a binding method, (3) formulation of the liquid binder and testing its suitability for printing and interaction with the powder, (4) specification of printing process parameters, and (5) specification of post-processing procedures.…”

Control of self-assembly in micro- and nano-scale systems

“…Directed assembly has a very strong bottleneck from a manufacturing point of view due to the limiting speeds at which you can manipulate the building blocks of the system. For example, a reasonable estimate for the printing speed of a three-dimensional printer with resolutions on the micro-to macro-scale is ∼1 cm/s [15]. Assuming nanometer resolution is attainable with this printing speed, it would take ∼10 14 s to print a device of 1 cm 3 volume with nanometer precision.…”

Near net-shape/net-dimension ZrC/W-based composites with complex geometries via rapid prototyping and Displacive Compensation of Porosity

“…While rapid prototyping methods have been used to prepare porous preforms for other reactive infiltration processes, no work has been conducted to date on the integration of rapid prototyping methods with a reactive infiltration process capable of generating dense, near net-dimension, ultrahigh-melting (>2500 • C) ceramic/metal composites. [38][39][40][41][42] The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the use of two rapid prototyping methods, 3D printing and computernumerical-controlled (CNC) machining, for fabricating shaped, porous WC preforms for subsequent conversion into dense, near net-shape/net-dimension ZrC/W-based composites.…”