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行业都有需求。这是由于它们独特的材料特性，包括出色的电气特性、隔热性能和高耐热、耐腐蚀、耐腐蚀和耐磨性能。传统的制造方法包括模板和工具，以在热处理之前成形陶瓷材料，这抑制了定制化和设计的复杂性。最近的重要关注集中在调整现有的添加剂制造(AM)工艺以满足未来的陶瓷需求。常用的方法，如立体光刻和粘结剂喷射，已经开始取得进展；然而，可加工材料、密度、重复性、高收缩和低分辨率的限制严重阻碍了它们的广泛采用。该项目致力于通过开发一种数字制造工艺来改变先进陶瓷的可获得性和开发，以克服独立AM技术的现有限制。这将通过将加法、减法和辅助方法结合在一起来实现，从而创造出精确的、三维的、多材料的先进陶瓷结构。将重点放在目前与现有AM方法不兼容的材料上，以加速该技术的快速采用。本次学习的目标是：-设计和构建多工艺数字化制造平台。-生产一系列陶瓷材料配方，具有所需的固体含量和流变性，以实现致密烧成陶瓷部件-在印刷和机械加工方面的工艺开发。-展示生产复杂3D部件的能力，这些部件具有高级陶瓷应用所需的特性。

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.