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Journal of Advanced Ceramics 2021, 10(4): 790-808 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40145-021-0473-2
Research Article | Open Access | Issue | Published: 05 August 2021

Microstructure refinement-homogenization and flexural strength improvement of Al2O3 ceramics fabricated by DLP-stereolithography integrated with chemical precipitation coating process

Show Author's Information Guanglin NIEa( ),  Yehua LIa,  Pengfei SHENGa,  Fei ZUOa,  Haolin WUa,  Leiren LIUa,  Xin DENGa,  Yiwang BAOb,  Shanghua WUa( )
School of Electromechanical Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China
State Key Laboratory of Green Building Materials, China Building Materials Academy, Beijing 100024, China
Keywords:
microstructure, reliability, flexural strength, thermal conductivity, stereolithography, Al2O3 ceramic
Cite this article:
NIE G, LI Y, SHENG P, et al. Microstructure refinement-homogenization and flexural strength improvement of Al2O3 ceramics fabricated by DLP-stereolithography integrated with chemical precipitation coating process. Journal of Advanced Ceramics, 2021, 10(4): 790-808. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40145-021-0473-2
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Abstract Full text About this article

In this study, the chemical precipitation coating (CP) process was creatively integrated with DLP-stereolithography based 3D printing for refining and homogenizing the microstructure of 3D printed Al2O3 ceramic. Based on this novel approach, Al2O3 powder was coated with a homogeneous layer of amorphous Y2O3, with the coated Al2O3 powder found to make the microstructure of 3D printed Al2O3 ceramic more uniform and refined, as compared with the conventional mechanical mixing (MM) of Al2O3 and Y2O3 powders. The grain size of Al2O3 in Sample CP is 64.44% and 51.43% lower than those in the monolithic Al2O3 ceramic and Sample MM, respectively. Sample CP has the highest flexural strength of 455.37±32.17 MPa, which is 14.85% and 25.45% higher than those of Samples MM and AL, respectively; also Sample CP has the highest Weibull modulus of 16.88 among the three kinds of samples. Moreover, the fine grained Sample CP has a close thermal conductivity to the coarse grained Sample MM because of the changes in morphology of Y3Al5O12 phase from semi-connected (Sample MM) to isolated (Sample CP). Finally, specially designed fin-type Al2O3 ceramic heat sinks were successfully fabricated via the novel integrated process, which has been proven to be an effective method for fabricating complex-shaped Al2O3 ceramic components with enhanced flexural strength and reliability.


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About this article

Microstructure refinement-homogenization and flexural strength improvement of Al2O3 ceramics fabricated by DLP-stereolithography integrated with chemical precipitation coating process

Show Author's information Guanglin NIEa( ), Yehua LIa, Pengfei SHENGa, Fei ZUOa, Haolin WUa, Leiren LIUa, Xin DENGa, Yiwang BAOb, Shanghua WUa( )
School of Electromechanical Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China
State Key Laboratory of Green Building Materials, China Building Materials Academy, Beijing 100024, China

Abstract

In this study, the chemical precipitation coating (CP) process was creatively integrated with DLP-stereolithography based 3D printing for refining and homogenizing the microstructure of 3D printed Al2O3 ceramic. Based on this novel approach, Al2O3 powder was coated with a homogeneous layer of amorphous Y2O3, with the coated Al2O3 powder found to make the microstructure of 3D printed Al2O3 ceramic more uniform and refined, as compared with the conventional mechanical mixing (MM) of Al2O3 and Y2O3 powders. The grain size of Al2O3 in Sample CP is 64.44% and 51.43% lower than those in the monolithic Al2O3 ceramic and Sample MM, respectively. Sample CP has the highest flexural strength of 455.37±32.17 MPa, which is 14.85% and 25.45% higher than those of Samples MM and AL, respectively; also Sample CP has the highest Weibull modulus of 16.88 among the three kinds of samples. Moreover, the fine grained Sample CP has a close thermal conductivity to the coarse grained Sample MM because of the changes in morphology of Y3Al5O12 phase from semi-connected (Sample MM) to isolated (Sample CP). Finally, specially designed fin-type Al2O3 ceramic heat sinks were successfully fabricated via the novel integrated process, which has been proven to be an effective method for fabricating complex-shaped Al2O3 ceramic components with enhanced flexural strength and reliability.

Keywords: microstructure, reliability, flexural strength, thermal conductivity, stereolithography, Al2O3 ceramic

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Publication history

Received: 29 September 2020
Revised: 26 February 2021
Accepted: 10 March 2021
Published: 05 August 2021
Issue date: August 2021

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© The Author(s) 2021

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Local Innovative and Research Team Project of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2017BT01C169), the Opening Project of State Key Laboratory of Green Building Materials (Grant No. 2019GBM03), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (Grant No. 2020A1515010004), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2018A030313353), and the Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou (Grant No. 201904010357).

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