Silicon carbide whiskers reinforced silicon carbide ceramics prepared by vat photopolymerization and liquid silicon infiltration

The development of additive manufacturing technique provides possibility to prepare SiC ceramics with complex shapes. However, defect control in the debinding and sintering stages is still a great challenge for the vat photopolymerized components. Here, SiC ceramics were manufactured by vat photopolymerization followed by liquid silicon infiltration, using SiC whiskers as the reinforcement. In the debinding stage, the SiC whiskers prevented the propagation of micro-cracks that induced by the formation and emission of gaseous substance. Also, the SiC whiskers provided channels for the infiltration of liquid silicon during sintering, thus the bulk density of the as-sintered SiCw/RBSC composite reached 2.95 g/cm3 at the whiskers fraction of 8 wt.%. Because of the various toughening mechanisms introduced by SiC whisker, the flexural strength and Vickers hardness of the composite increased up to 352.2 MPa and 17.54 GPa, respectively. Thus, this work provides a new strategy to control micro-defects in vat photopolymerized SiC ceramics.