A study of rheology of ceramic 3D printing ink

Silicon carbide is a type of ceramic structure which can withstand high chemical corrosion and temperature. As the 3D printing industry has been developing very fast and using silicon carbide paste could be one of the main material for production purposes. This will expedite the production for objects like prototypes, temporary replacements of parts which cannot be purchase off the shelf easily. This project will be discussing about the production process of creating a suitable silicon carbide paste for 3D printing using robocasting method. The general required materials to be used to create the paste are Silicon Carbide, Polyacrylic Acid (PAA), Polyethylenimine (PEI), Methyl Cellulous (MC) and water. The research has shown that Methyl Cellulous(MC) is required to be added into the composition of paste as it will assist in obtaining a viscosity of the paste. The paste has to undergo sintering for 14 hours at a temperature of 1000 degree Celsius. After sintering, the sintered sample will be check for its porosity structure with Scanning Electron Microscope. Finally, a suitable Silicon Carbide paste will be determined based on several tests such as the viscosity test, density test, porosity test and the sintering shrinkage result.Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering