Development of highly filled filaments for the additive manufacturing of ceramic and metal components

Since the development of the different rapid prototyping methods in 1984 nowadays additive manufacturing has been widely established in product design and engineering. Due to the vehement progress and the enormous price decline in the last couple of years, suitable 3D-printers, e.g. following the FDM-principle (Fused Deposition Modeling) using ther-moplast-based filaments, are commercially available at moderate costs and allowing structural features below 100 μm. In addition, low filler-load filaments enabling decorative surfaces or first functional elements are on market too. Within the frame of this work, a new process chain with the central goal of establishing FDM as suitable manufacturing method for ceramic and metal parts will be presented.