Fabrication investigation and properties evaluation of advanced metal-ceramic lattice composites engineered by ceramic additive manufacturing and infiltration casting process

This study attempts to fabricate metal-ceramic composites using a triply periodic minimal surface-based lattice geometry. The study involves the fabrication of ceramic lattices using a custom ceramic-slurry additive manufacturing process, followed by a precise metallic interpenetration casting approach. The fabricated zirconia-brass lattice composites demonstrated enhanced structural toughness and abrasion resistance properties. Furthermore, by careful manipulation of porosity and mutual composition (i.e., brass and zirconia), the thermal conductivity of the composite can be tuned as per the requirements. The optimized diamond lattice, with 88.46% brass content, exhibited the highest thermal conductivity, while the Schwarz-P lattice showed the lowest due to residual porosity. In addition, the tribological analysis of ceramic-metal composite confirmed that increasing the applied load from 5 N to 15 N resulted in higher wear resistance and a coefficient of friction increment from 0.183 to 0.224. Furthermore, the compression testing revealed that the metal reinforcement significantly enhanced failure strain and modulus of toughness, with Schwarz-P lattice achieving the highest increment of 617% and 4200%, respectively. Furthermore, the load-bearing strength was significantly increased from 39.27 MPa to 154.75 MPa with the metallic reinforcement. This study successfully demonstrates the feasibility of fabricating metal-ceramic composites for high-performance structural applications. Nevertheless, the results indicate that successful metal infiltration is strongly dependent on lattice pore size and connectivity, highlighting an important design constraint for future implementations.