Roles of solid loading in stereolithography additive manufacturing of ZrO₂ ceramic

The stereolithography additive manufacturing is reported to fabricate ZrO₂ ceramic components with complex-shapes for various military and engineering applications recently. Investigations show that the solid loading of the ceramic suspension exhibits significant influence on the properties of stereolithography additive manufactured ZrO₂ ceramic. However, the intrinsic relationships between the solid loading of the ZrO₂ suspension and the relative density, microstructure, mechanical and other properties of the ZrO₂ ceramic have not been investigated systematically. In this study, the roles of solid loading in stereolithography additive manufacturing of ZrO₂ ceramic were discussed in detail. Firstly, the rheological property, curing behavior of the ZrO₂ suspensions with different solid loading were studied, and the stereolithography additive manufacturing was subsequently conducted. After that, the effects of the solid loading on the phase composition, relative density, mechanical property, microstructure, coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), and shrinkage of the as-prepared ZrO₂ ceramic were studied in-depth. The relationship between the solid loading of the ZrO₂ suspension and the properties of the ZrO₂ ceramic were successfully revealed. At last, ZrO₂ ceramic components with good shape stability, high precision, and high performance were obtained. It is believed that this paper can give a deep understanding of the stereolithography additive manufacturing of ceramics.