Feasibility study on rapid prototyping of porcelain products

In order to reduce the time to market of new or customized porcelain products or artworks, rapid prototyping using layer-wise slurry deposition (LSD) was studied in the present research. The properties such as phase composition, microstructure, shrinkage, density, and mechanical strength, of laser-sintered (LS) and biscuit-fired (BF) samples before and after post-sintering in a furnace were studied and compared with each other. The laser-sintered sample was comparable with the biscuit-fired sample with regard to porosity, but had just half the mechanical strength of the latter. The feasibility of rapid prototyping of porcelain products was validated by the successful fabrication of two models (thick-wall pipe and double heart), which showed that the relatively low mechanical strength of the laser-sintered samples was still high enough for the downstream handling processes.