Project D – Additive Manufacturing of Cellular Lead-Free Ceramics
Description / Outline
The electromechanical properties of porous ferroelectrics are attractive for transduction applications, such as hydrophones, as the piezoelectric properties can be optimized in reticulate ceramic foams through the control of pore formation and cell size distribution. This allows for the optimization of properties for energy harvesting applications, making them lightweight and flexible. The required homogenous cellular structures can be produced either by sacrificial lattice templates or additive manufacturing, where, for example, a regular periodic structure (auxetic-like) consisting of various piezo-ceramic materials can be realized with a building block technique. A significant advantage of this approach is the ability to expressly design and optimize the 3D structure to enhance the electromechanical output, e.g., piezoelectric response for energy harvesting systems or strain enhancement for actuators.
The aim of this project is the investigation of lead-free cellular ceramics with additive manufacturing for novel lightweight and flexible (wearable) energy harvesting and sensor systems using auxetic or auxetic-like structures. Determination of influence of structural design parameters, e.g., polarization orientation, of the 3D-structure as well as microstructural properties, e.g., internal porosity, on resulting electromechanical properties will be in focus.