Additive manufacturing of textured ceramics

The study of tailoring crystallographic gain orientation has been an area of great interest due to the ability to enhance specific material properties. Bulk textured ceramics are commonly manufactured by aligning seed grains in a polycrystalline material through tape casting. This talk will explore the idea of transitioning this technology into an additive manufacturing process. Discussing the unique challenges of 3D printing ceramic materials and obtaining proper alignment of seed gains while flowing through a nozzle. This talk will detail current efforts to model alignment of seed grains through a nozzles and create new nozzle geometry optimized for aligning particles in a ceramic slurry. This discussion will entail the current prototype materials being created and the final goal of creating textured piezoelectric material to be used in transducer applications.