Additive Manufacturing of Stainless Steel/Zirconia Ceramic Composite Parts by Fused Filament Fabrication and Sintering

Motivation of this work is to demonstrate the combination of additive manufacturing andpowder technology for individual metal-ceramic composite parts. 316L-zirconia composites areproduced by extrusion of a powder filled thermoplastic feedstock through a hot nozzle (fused filamentfabrication, FFF) followed by a debinding and sintering step. The formulation and optimization of differentfeedstocks to printable filaments and the subsequent debinding and sintering cycles are described. Testparts have been fabricated and characterised in terms of geometrical quality, sinter shrinkage, density,mechanical strength, hardness, and microstructure. A suitable material-process combination has beendeveloped that gives similar microstructure and properties of parts compared to powder injectionmoulding (PIM) of the same material system. Areas of applications like individual and small series ofmedical parts are addressed.