Ceramic laser gelling

This paper presents a novel layered manufacturing method, ceramic laser gelling (CLG), for forming ceramic green part. This process involves mixing ceramic powder with an inorganic binder to form ceramic slurry. Owing to evaporation of water in a portion of slurry layer caused by laser exposure, the ceramic slurry is gelled locally to form 3D ceramic green part layer by layer. A series of experiments was conducted to obtain suitable laser and scanning parameters for layers of 40-440 mu m thickness and to obtain the smallest pave-able layer thickness of 80 mu m on a self-made experimental rapid prototyping machine The feasibility of this process was demonstrated by manufacturing an intricate fan blade. In comparison with SLA and SLS, CLG has an advantage of using environmental compatible water-soluble inorganic binder. It needs lower laser power and has faster production rate than ceramic laser fusion (CLF). Futhermore, it can fabricate green parts composed of almost 100% pure silica. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.