Ceramic paste extruder of 3D printing: status, types, and prospects

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) is an important, rapidly emerging, manufacturing technology that takes the information from a computer-aided design (CAD) and builds parts in a layer-by-layer style. Since about three decades ago, AM technologies have been used to fabricate prototypes or parts mostly from polymeric or metallic materials. However, 3D printing of ceramics is getting growing attention. It is an appropriate method to answer the increased demand for ceramic structures with complicated morphology by fabricating ceramic parts with high resolution and good surface quality. There are several 3D printing technologies available to 3D print ceramic material as paste extrusion, powder sintering, binder jetting, and photopolymerization. This paper presents the classification of 3D printing technologies used for the manufacturing of ceramic components, the historical origin of these technologies and their technical principle. This work focuses on ceramic pasta extruder systems. It presents the different types of material extrusion systems for ceramic, some examples of their current machines, and their advantages and limitations. Then, after an extensive categorization of the different extrusion systems with existing technical solutions, some prospects to improving these systems are presented and that will be the work of the next paper.