Material extrusion additive manufacturing of zirconia parts using powder injection molding feedstock compositions

The aim of this study is the evaluation powder injection molding (PIM) binder compositions for material extrusion (MEX) additive manufacturing zirconia parts. Four commercial PIM were selected and mixed with 45 vol% yttria-stabilized powder. Due to brittle characteristic obtained ceramic feedstocks, a screw based pellet printing head was used dense structures. To compare 3D performance, additionally commercially available filament in study. Application limited either due phase separation during processing, poor performance or delamination solvent debinding. Only one feedstock could be successfully printed, debound sintered. A ring-on-ring setup investigate equibiaxial flexural strength after sintering both printed disks. For benchmarking, cold isostatic pressed (CIP) discs fabricated by commercial, ready-to-press, results showed low Weibull modulus (3 <m<5) all samples, regardless process. Fractography on samples demonstrated, that origins failures are close area loading ring which indicates an uneven stress distribution along contact between sample. pointwise concentration reason immature failure modulus. 90% confidence intervals produced via CIP. Almost similar mechanical properties CIP (σ0 = 657 MPa) 531 samples. However, lower Binder 203 MPa). analysis indicated fusion layers composition as main performance.