Fabrication of Natural Flake Graphite/Ceramic Composite Parts with Low Thermal Conductivity and High Strength by Selective Laser Sintering

Abstract

The 3D graphite/ceramic composite prototyping parts directly prepared by selective laser sintering (SLS) were porous, which led to poor strength and low thermal conductivity. In order to obtain low thermal conductivity and high strength, its thermal conductivity and compressive strength were adjusted by changing the mixture powder composition and adding post-processing. The result showed that the addition of silicon powder in the mixture powder could significantly improve the compressive strength and thermal conductivity. The addition of expanded graphite was beneficial to the formation of the closed pores in the matrix, which slightly reduced the compressive strength but significantly reduced the thermal conductivity. The 3D graphite/ceramic composite part showed an order of magnitude improvement in compressive strength (from 1.25 to 13.87 MPa) but relatively small change in thermal conductivity (from 1.40 to 2.12 W·m−1K−1) and density (from 0.53 to 1.13 g·cm−3) by post-processing. Reasonable mixture powder composition and post-processing were determined and realized the possibility of fabricating a 3D graphite/ceramic composite part with low thermal conductivity but high compressive strength. Furthermore, it could be used for the repeated casting of steel castings, and through the comparative analysis of casting defects, the prepared graphite/ceramic composite part was expected to replace water glass sand mold.