Effects of soft-start exposure on the curing characteristics and flexural strength in ceramic projection stereolithography process

Ceramic mask projection stereolithography (CMSL) is an additive manufacturing (AM) technology which is capable of implementing delicate structural designs of ceramic parts. Studies have shown that soft-start exposure mode has an effect on the polymer properties of the cured resin, such as conversion degree, curing speed etc. However, the effect of soft-start exposure on CMSL process has not received much attention. In this investigation, soft-start exposure was compared with constant exposure. The results showed that the soft-start exposure reduced the critical exposure energy (maximum reduction of 48.2%) of the slurry. The feature dimensional error of soft-start exposure was smaller than constant exposure by 25–45%. The soft-start exposure also had an effect on the strength of sintered parts. The bending samples fabricated by soft-start exposure had higher Weibull moduli (maximum increase of 47.2%), indicating that soft-start exposure stabled the curing process.