A review of additive manufacturing of cermets

Abstract

Cermets are a category of materials including ceramic and metallic phases, which possess the combined properties of both phases. Over the last few decades, numerous conventional processes such as powder metallurgy techinques and casting have been proposed for the fabrication of cermet components. In recent years, additive manufacturing (AM) has emerged as a promising method that can eliminate most of the limitations of conventional production methods. Among AM processes, selective laser sintering/melting (SLS/SLM), laser engineering net shaping (LENS), direct laser fabrication (DLF), binder jet 3D printing, and 3D gel/direct-ink-write/robocasting printing have been investigated for manufacturing bulk cermet parts. This study presents a summary of research that has been conducted to produce bulk cermets by additive manufacturing.