Initial Study of Selective Laser Melting of ZrO2/Al2O3 Ceramic

Selective Laser Melting (SLM) has shown its advantage in producing metal parts with fully density, complex shape and excellent mechanical properties. However, there are many challenges ahead applying this technology to build ceramic structure. Cracking tendency is the main problem, due to high thermal gradient and temperature difference during laser melting and low plastic formation of ceramic materials. This paper presents an experimental investigation of building an oxide ceramic by selective laser melting technology, based on powder bed. A mixture of ZrO2/Al2O3 ceramic powder was used. To decrease the thermal gradient, the thin powder layer was heated by a high energy fiber laser source. Parametric study was presented, including laser power, scanning speed, powder component ratio and heating strategy.Published versio