3D printing via the direct ink writing technique of ceramic pastes from typical formulations used in traditional ceramics industry

This research presents an additive manufacturing study of a ceramic paste typically used in the ceramic industry. The 3D printing technique used was the direct ink writing (DIW) method, which is an extrusion based process. Several formulations were built with different volumetric fractions of solids with respect to water, all between 50% and 56%. Two types of additives (sodium silicate and sodium polyacrylate) were used with concentrations between 0.2 and 0.8 wt%. The printable pieces were those that were able to maintain the shape, have been sintered after the printing process and subjected to different tests. Dimension stability tests were conducted in order to determine the contraction after the air drying and fired process. Scanning electron microscopy, density, compression strength, x-ray diffraction, and rheology experiments were conducted over these successful formulations. Weibull analysis in the compression tests were made over the sintered samples as well.