Digital Fabrication of Advanced Ceramics

先进陶瓷在医疗保健、工业系统、电子、能源和航空航天等各种高价值制造领域都有需求。这是由于其独特的材料特性，包括优异的电气特性，热绝缘性和高耐热性，耐腐蚀性，耐侵蚀性和耐磨性。传统的制造方法涉及模板和工具，以在热处理之前使陶瓷材料成形，这抑制了定制和设计复杂性。最近的注意力主要集中在调整现有的增材制造（AM）工艺以满足陶瓷的未来需求。常见的方法，如立体光刻和粘合剂喷射，已经开始取得进展;然而，可加工材料，密度，可重复性，高收缩率和低分辨率的限制显着阻碍了它们的广泛采用。该奖学金旨在通过开发数字制造工艺来改变先进陶瓷的可及性和开发，该工艺克服了独立AM技术的现有局限性。这将通过结合加法，减法和辅助方法来实现，以创造精确的，三维的，多材料的，先进的陶瓷结构。重点关注目前与现有AM方法不兼容的材料，以加速该技术的快速采用。 该学生的目标是：-设计和建立一个多流程数字化制造平台。- 生产一系列具有所需固体含量和流变性能的陶瓷材料配方，以实现致密烧结陶瓷部件-在印刷性和加工方面进行工艺开发。- 展示生产具有先进陶瓷应用所需特性的复杂3D零件的能力。

Advanced ceramics are in demand across a variety of high-value manufacturing sectors covering healthcare, industrial systems, electronics, energy and aerospace. This is due to their unique material properties including excellent electrical characteristics, thermal insulation and high resistance to heat, corrosion, erosion and wear. Conventional manufacturing approaches involve templates and tooling to shape a ceramic material prior to thermal processing which inhibits customisation and design complexity. Significant recent attention has focused on adapting existing Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes to meet the future needs of ceramics. Common methods, such as stereolithography and binder jetting, have started to make progress; however, the limitations on processable materials, density, repeatability, high shrinkages and poor resolution is significantly hampering their widespread adoption. This studentship seeks to transform the accessibility and exploitation of advanced ceramics through the development of a digital fabrication process that overcomes the existing limitations of standalone AM techniques. This will be achieved by combining additive, subtractive and assistive methods working in unison to create precise, three-dimensional, multi-material, advanced ceramic structures. A focus on materials that are currently not compatible with existing AM approaches to accelerate the rapid adoption of this technology. The objectives of this studentship are: - Design and build a multi-process digital manufacturing platform. - Produce a range of ceramic material formulations, with the required solids content and rheological properties to achieve dense fired ceramic parts - Process development both in terms of printability and machining. - Demonstrate the capability to produce complex 3D parts that have the required characteristics for advanced ceramic applications.