Additive manufacturing of Al2O3 with engineered interlayers and high toughness through multi-material co-extrusion
ZHOU S. 1, CAI Q. 1, TIRICHENKO I. 1, VILCHEZ V. 1, GAVALDA-DIAZ O. 1,2, BOUVILLE F. 1, SAIZ GUTIERREZ E. 1
1 Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom; 2 University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom
Robocasting is an additive manufacturing technique used to fabricate ceramic parts with be-spoken architectures. However, the fabrication of multi-material composites with tailored microstructures by robocasting is still challenging and time-consuming. It usually requires switching printheads with different pastes, modifying the printhead or the use of external fields. In this work, we demonstrate a straightforward method to obtain ceramics with an intricate network of weak interlayers in order to generate an increased fracture resistance. This is achieved by coextruding multi-material pastes based on thermally reversible hydrogels and inorganic powder (alumina and graphite). The rheology of component pastes is carefully matched to enable coextrusion. The printed Al2O3 bars with and without weak interphases exhibit strengths ranging between 180-360 MPa and fracture toughness around 3 MPa?m1/2. The introduction of weak interlayers using different raster patterns, such as length wise and Bouligand alignment, can be used to direct crack propagation and promote gradual failure. The result is an improvement in the work of fracture up to 230 J/m2 and KJ up to 9 MPa?m1/2. These results suggest the potential of manufacturing ceramics with enhanced mechanical properties by multi-material robocasting to engineer the interlayer.