Provided is an article that includes silicon carbide as a main component and that has sufficient mechanical strength while manufactured by a three-dimensional shaping technology. The article that includes silicon carbide as a main component includes: silicon carbide; a metal boride having a melting point lower than a sublimation point of silicon carbide; and metal silicon.

Compositions comprising preceramic resins and fumed alumina are described. The compositions can also include fillers, such as silicon carbide whiskers or zirconium diboride particles. The compositions can be used as three-dimensional printable inks for preparing ceramic composites, e.g., composites having complex geometry. Inclusion of fumed alumina as a rheology modifier in the composition can provide improved printing properties for the inks compared to preceramic resin inks that do not include fumed alumina.

A method for producing an article containing silicon carbide as the main constituent includes a plurality of sets of steps of forming a layer of a raw material powder and irradiating the layer with laser light according to three-dimensional model data. The low material powder is a mixture of silicon carbide powder, metallic silicon powder, and carbon powder. The laser light used in the step of irradiation with laser light has a spatial laser power density of 11 J/mm.sup.3 to 50 J/mm.sup.3.

A system for forming a product with different size particles is disclosed. The system comprises at least one print head region configured to retain a first group of print heads configurable to additively print at least a first portion of the product with a first material and a second group of print heads configurable to additively print at least a second portion of the product with a second material. The described system may also comprise a processor configured to regulate the first group of print heads and the second group of print heads to distribute the first material and the second material. A method of making an object by ink jet printing using the disclosed system is also disclosed.

A three-dimensional shaped article production method for producing a three-dimensional shaped article by stacking layers to form a stacked body includes a first layer formation step of forming a first layer on a support by supplying a first composition containing first particles and a binder, a second layer formation step of forming a second layer composed of one layer or a plurality of layers on the first layer by supplying a second composition containing second particles and a binder, and a separation step of separating the second layer from the support through the first layer, wherein after the separation step, a sintering step of sintering the second layer is performed.

A method for forming a transparent ceramic, in accordance with one embodiment, includes forming a green body by material jetting an ink, and processing the green body to form the ceramic to transparency. A product, in accordance with one embodiment, includes an ink for forming a transparent ceramic. The ink is physically characterized as having a density, surface tension, and viscosity configured to enable material jetting of the ink in contained, sequential droplets having a volume in the range of about 1 picoliter to about 1 nanoliter when jetted from a nozzle having an inner diameter in the range of about 10 microns to about 300 microns. A product, in accordance with another embodiment, includes a transparent ceramic, at least a portion of the transparent ceramic having layers of less than 50 microns per layer with physical characteristics of formation by material jetting.

The disclosure describes a system that includes a controller configured to receive a representation of a three-dimensional geometry of a preform, determine a set of dimensions of the preform from the representation of the preform, and determine dimensions of at least one insert for a fixed tooling based on a dimensional tolerance of the preform, the set of dimensions of the preform, and dimensions of the fixed tooling.

Disclosed is a curable composition for the manufacture, by stereolithography, of a green part made of a ceramic or metallic material, the curable composition including at least one ceramic and/or metallic powder; at least one polymerizable monomer and/or oligomer; at least one initiator for the polymerization of the polymerizable monomer(s) and/or oligomer(s). The initiator(s) are selected from iodonium, sulphonium and diazonium salts and onium salts in combination with at least one amine and/or at least one phosphine to form a charge transfer complex. The initiator(s) may generate the initiation of a thermal polymerization under the exposure to at least one source of UV, visible or IR irradiation.

A method for forming an abrasive article via an additive manufacturing technique including forming a layer of powder material comprising a precursor bond material and abrasive particles, compacting at least a portion of the layer to form a compacted layer, binding at least a portion of the compacted layer and repeating the steps of forming, compacting and binding to form a green body abrasive article.

The present invention describes various aspects of an inexpensive, renewable and sustainable particulate material system which is basically composed of one or more carbon precursor materials and other powder-based constituents. There is also an in-detail description of the composition of the preferred particulate material system and steps involved in manufacturing high-performance carbon composite articles using commercial binder jetting powder-based 3D printers. The preferred particulate material system composition of the present invention can be equal in performance to typical binder jetting 3D printing powders but much less expensive.