Rapid prototyping machine based on ceramic laser fusion

This paper proposes an automatic machine using a new process, ceramic laser fusion, for rapid fabrication of ceramic parts. The machine comprises three parts: a laser scanning system, a green layer paving system, and a control system. In order to control the working procedure of layer paving and scanning process, a process computer is connected to an X-Y table, a PLC and a path/laser controller. An even green layer of 0.15 mm thickness could be paved accurately using ceramic slurry by a layer paving device. After drying by an infrared heater, the green layer could be fused to form a ceramic layer by a CO2 laser and then a 3-D ceramic workpiece could be fabricated layer by layer automatically. The time spent on fabricating a 25x25x0.15 mm ceramic specimen was 3 min. The SEM micrograph of the melted ceramic layers shows that ceramic green layers can be fused together.