Additive Manufacturing of Complex Ceramic Cores and Verification of Casting Process

Abstract

Additive manufacturing technology based on SLA is investigated to produce multi-wall ceramic cores for large-size blades with complex hollow structure. The green part is prepared with DLP printer from ceramic slurry mixed of photoresin and fused silica powder. After debinding and sintering, the ceramic core using for real casting process is fabricated. The resin consisted of 1, 6-hexanediol diacrylate(HDDA)and ethoxylated pentaerythritol tetraacrylate(PPTTA). The fused silica had two powder sizes, 400 mesh and 1000 mesh respectively. During the process of printing layer by layer, the stress state of the green part was found to be influenced by the thickness of ceramic coating, which could be optimized by adjusting coating process, blade gap and velocity. A multi-layer ceramic core( height: 120 mm, width: 80 mm) is eventually created and verified by real casting and core-removing process.