Investigation of the Printability and Curing of Barium Titanate Composites with Direct Ink Writing
Open Access
- Author:
- Karekatte, Rishabh
- Area of Honors:
- Mechanical Engineering
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Zoubeida Ounaies, Thesis Supervisor
Bo Cheng, Thesis Honors Advisor
Amrita Basak, Thesis Supervisor
Amira Barhoumi Meddeb, Thesis Supervisor - Keywords:
- Barium Titanate
3D Printing
Direct Ink Writing
Polymer-Ceramic Composites
Ceramics
Polymers
Printability
Curability - Abstract:
- Polymer-ceramic composites have a wide range of engineering applications, particularly in the electronics industry, due to their unique combination of electrical and thermal properties from ceramics and mechanical properties from polymers. While a variety of manufacturing techniques are available for processing these composites, direct ink writing has emerged as a promising subset of the rapidly growing field of 3D printing. Despite extensive research on direct ink writing and curing of polymer-ceramic composites individually, their combination requires further investigation, as the optimal material properties for 3D printing differ from those required for rapid curing while maintaining the desired shape. This thesis examines the printability and curability of barium titanate composites, specifically barium titanate-ethyl cellulose and barium titanate-polyethylene glycol diacrylate. Studies were conducted to assess the printability of these materials using a Biopolymer 3D Printer tailored for direct ink writing, as well as their curability using various techniques, such as an infrared lamp, ultraviolet lamp, oven, and heated bed. No further experiments were conducted on printed samples that exhibited substantial spreading or shape alteration during curing or those that failed to cure effectively. For composites that could be cured with minimal spreading after direct ink writing, analysis was conducted to evaluate the curing time for each layer in a multi-layer square geometry. Additionally, the extent of spreading was quantified by analyzing line width and corner radius before and after curing. Lastly, differential scanning calorimetry was employed to determine if the glass transition temperature, which is indicative of the degree of curing, varied between different layers of the cured samples. Conditions for printing and successful curing were determined, paving the way for the direct ink writing of BTO composites with complex shapes.