Low Cost Components Manufacturing

The transition of the defense oriented technologies into the commercial market is needed to maintain a strong advanced materials industry. Cost is the primary consideration in the commercial market. Therefore, manufacturing processes are needed to fabricate components from advanced materials that are affordable and competitive on a cost basis with current materials. MS Technology (MST) proposes to combine defense technologies to manufacture advanced ceramic matrix composites at affordable costs. A new laminar ceramic matrix composite (CMC) of a ceria-zirconia matrix reinforced with layers of CeO2-ZrO2 and Al203 ceramics has been developed by defense industries. These layered composites have the potential for fracture toughness as high as some tool steels, up to 40 MPa-m1/2. Currently, this new CMC cannot be made into practical and inexpensive, commercial components. In view of this, MST has started its own project to develop a desktop manufacturing system for structural monolithic ceramics using a laminated object manufacturing (LOM) technique. The LOM technique is uniquely suited to manufacture layered CMCs. The main objective of this project is to demonstrate the feasibility of manufacturing layered CMCs using the LOM technique. Another objective will be to develop the equipment and processes so that layered composites can be manufactured for ballistic missile defense or other commercial applications at reasonable costs.