Advanced shaping of diverse ceramic materials via dental CNC technology: A sustainable strategy for high-precision machining of green and brown bodies

• Demonstration of a high-precision, 5-axis CNC system for machining ceramic bodies. • Optimized green body, pre-sintering, and machining for better surface accuracy • Analysis of hardness, shrinkage, and surface integrity for TZ-3YSB-E and ZTA. • Thermal, mechanical & sintering behavior for scalable advanced ceramic protocols. • Cost-effective & adaptable machining for energy, biomedical, and dental use. This study presents a comprehensive investigation into the development of machinable brown ceramic bodies with compact five-axis CNC machining systems. Green body disc formation, pre-sintering protocols, and machining parameters were systematically refined to achieve enhanced dimensional precision and surface quality. The coordinated design improvement of powder dosing, packing density, pressing pressure, and pre-sintering temperature produced ceramic blanks with mechanical properties well-suited for stable and accurate machining. By lowering pre-sintering temperatures, the brittleness of brown bodies was reduced, enabling smoother cutting, minimized tool wear, and improved structures. Using this approach, complex geometries with sub-millimeter wall thicknesses (300–350 μm) were successfully machined with high accuracy. Sintered TZ-3YSB-E and ZTA ceramics demonstrated flexural strengths of 837 MPa and 483 MPa, respectively, alongside excellent thermal conductivity and machinability. The findings support the development of robust, efficient machining strategies for next-generation ceramic components with complex geometries.