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Microstructure and properties of 3D-printed alumina ceramics with different heating rates in vacuum debinding

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Abstract

The effect of heating rates during vacuum debinding on the microstructure and mechanical properties of alumina ceramics are discussed in this paper. The three-dimensional (3D)-printed alumina ceramics examined in this study were found to have a layered structure, and interlayer spacing increased as the heating rate increased. The pore diameter, shrinkage, flexural strength and hardness were found to decrease as the heating rate increased due to weak interfacial bonding between alumina particles. Shrinkage was found to be much larger along the Z direction than along the X or Y directions due to the layer-by-layer forming mode during 3D printing. 0.5 °C·min−1 is considered the optimum heating rate, yielding ceramics with interlayer spacing of 0.65 µm, shrinkage of 2.6%, 2.3% and 4.0% along the X, Y and Z directions, respectively, flexural strength of 27.5 MPa, hardness of 29.8 GPa, Vickers hardness of HV 266.5, pore diameter of 356.8 nm, bulk density of 2.5 g·cm−3, and open porosity of 38.4%. The debinding procedure used in this study could be used to produce a high-quality ceramic which can be used for fabricating alumina ceramic cores.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFB1106600) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51672217).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Science and Technology on Thermostructural Composite Materials Laboratory, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, China

    He Li, Yong-Sheng Liu, Yan-Song Liu & Qing-Feng Zeng

  2. NPU-SAS Joint Research Center of Advanced Ceramics, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, China

    He Li, Yong-Sheng Liu & Yan-Song Liu

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Ke-Hui Hu & Zhi-Gang Lu

  4. State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Ke-Hui Hu & Zhi-Gang Lu

  5. Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110016, China

    Jing-Jing Liang

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  1. He Li
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Correspondence to Yong-Sheng Liu.

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Li, H., Liu, YS., Liu, YS. et al. Microstructure and properties of 3D-printed alumina ceramics with different heating rates in vacuum debinding. Rare Met. 39, 577–588 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-020-01372-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-020-01372-x

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