Additive Manufacturing of Piezoelectric 3-3 Composite Structures

Fused deposition of ceramics (FDC) is an additive manufacturing technique, were thermoplastic filaments are used for the fabrication of intricate structures that are difficult or impossible to produce with traditional techniques. This processing technique is utilized in the domestic and industrial appliance market. However, this simple and cheap manufacturing method is not widely used for the fabrication of traditional, high performance or functional ceramics. The objective of this contribution is to manufacture grid structures by means of FDC and subsequently investigate their electromechanical properties. Highly loaded ceramic - EVA (ethyl vinyl acetate) based filament is produced, as a feedstock for FDC. After successful printing and sintering of the grid structures, ferroelectric investigations were performed. Moreover, the grid structures are impregnated with a polymer resin resulting in a piezoelectric 3-3 composite that can be used as a hydrophone in under water noise detection.