Defects and prevention in ceramic components fabricated by inkjet printing

Inkjet printing has been used as a solid freeform technique to fabricate a wider rage of miniature ceramic components with structures difficult to obtain using traditional ceramic fabrication techniques. Quality control of fabricated components is crucial to avoid macroscopic and microscopic defects. Macroscopic defects are those due to lack of accuracy of deposition, which affect both the precision of size and shape definitions. Microscopic defects are internal voids or flaws due to deposition or subsequent treatments. This paper reports the work in the identification of different types of defects, their causes and prevention in terms of ink properties and printing conditions.