CerAMfacturing: Development of Ceramic and Multi Material Components by Additive Manufacturing Methods for Personalized Medical Products

Abstract

Additive manufacturing technologies offer the possibility of tool-free production of components with extremely complex geometry that cannot be attained by any other shaping technique. In our project we are developing a completely new approach for ceramic multi-material additive manufacturing that will allow series production of customized and multifunctional components for manifold applications. In several case studies demonstrators for personalized medical products – micro surgical tools, implants, and remedies – will be manufactured starting with the patient-specific physical dimensions and ending with components validated under practically relevant conditions.

Additive Manufacturing of Metallic and Ceramic Components by the Material Extrusion of Highly-Filled Polymers: A Review and Future Perspectives

“…More recently, the possibility of producing parts made of 17-4PH steel and zirconia via MEAM-HP has been demonstrated [ 114 , 150 ]. These two powder materials in their commercial state have very different sintering activity since their particle sizes are orders of magnitude different; zirconia has an average particle size around 0.6 μm, while this steel has an average size around 20 μm.…”

“…The milling produced particles with a higher specific surface area. Also, after the milling, the initially spherical steel particles became irregular and angularly shaped; thus, the packing of the steel powder was changed and the overall sintering behavior became comparable between zirconia and steel [ 150 ]. An example of a part shaped by MEAM with zirconia and steel is shown in Figure 9 a,b; a co-sintered part with 17-4PH and zirconia is shown in Figure 9 c.…”

Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) of Metal-Ceramic Components

“…Production of ceramic components requires complex processing, and this has stalled progress in the AM of ceramics. Nevertheless, ceramic components are indispensable for special consumer goods and medical devices, and AM opens up new horizons for the fabrication of novel components with "impossible" geometries 12 . For technical ceramic components, a subsequent thermal treatment of the manufactured components is required since the AM shaping of ceramics requires the use of powders suspended in organic binders that need to be removed (i.e., debinding) before the powder is fused together (i.e., sintering).…”

“…The European Project cerAMfacturing (EU-Project CORDIS 678503) is developing AM technologies for single material components as well as a completely new approach for AM of multi-material components, which will allow serial production of customized and multifunctional components for various applications based methods. Because the particle distribution of the powder in a suspension is more homogeneous and more compact than in a powder bed, these shaping methods yield higher green densities, which result in sintered components with dense microstructures and low surface roughness levels 12 .…”

“…Along with lithography-based ceramic manufacturing (LCM) 7,8,9,10,11,16,17 , fused filament fabrication (FFF) and thermoplastic 3D-printing (T3DP) 12,14,18 are being developed. FFF and T3DP are more suitable for the AM of multi-material components than LCM because of the selective deposition and solidification of the certain material instead of the pure selective solidification of material deposited all over the entire layer 14 .…”