Diamond composites by lithography-based manufacturing

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2018250647-A1
Application number	US-201615754316-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Aug 25, 2016
Priority date	Aug 26, 2015
Publication date	Sep 6, 2018
Grant date	—

Abstract

A lithography based method for the manufacture of diamond composite materials in which green bodies are prepared by a layer-by-layer construction with resulting green bodies de-bound and sintered to achieve a dense high hardness material.

First claim

1 . A method of preparing a diamond composite with a layered structure comprising:
preparing a slurry containing a polymerisable binder, an initiator and diamond particles; forming a layered structure green body by stepwise irradiation curing of the slurry containing diamond particles, binder and initiator; forming a white body comprising at least 30 vol % diamond particles by de-binding the layered structure green body; introducing an infiltrant to the white body; and sintering the white body by heating the white body from an initial stage up to a maximum sintering temperature by incremental temperature increases at a rate of 10 to 60° C./min at a first pressure.

2 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the diamond particles have a particle size of less than or equal to 200 μm.

3 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the diamond particles have a particle size of less than or equal to 100 μm.

4 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the diamond particles have a bi-modular or multi-modular particle size distribution and at least one fraction of diamond particles has a particle size of less than 30 μm and at least one fraction of diamond particles has a particle size of less than 100 μm.

5 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the step of de-binding includes heating the green body up to a first de-binding temperature via incremental temperature increases, wherein the de-binding temperature is in a range of from 200° C. to 600° C. and the incremental temperature increases are at increments of 0.1 to 2° C./min

6 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the step of de-binding includes exposing the green body to a supercritical fluid.

7 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising continuing to heat the white body in a further stage at a second pressure greater than the first pressure.

8 . The method as claimed in claim 7 , wherein the maximum sintering temperature during the initial stage is in the range of from 850 to 1750° C.

9 . The method as claimed in claim 7 , wherein the second pressure at the second stage is at least 50% greater than the first pressure at the initial stage.

10 . A diamond composite article having a diamond particles content between 30 and 65 vol % comprising a layered microstructure having diamond rich layers with binder matrix rich layers in between, wherein the diamond rich layers are in the range of 25 to 200 microns and the binder matrix rich layers are in the range of 1 to 15 microns.

11 . The diamond composite according to claim 10 , which has been manufactured according to the method of claim 1 .

12 . The diamond composite according to claim 10 , wherein the binder is SiC.

13 . The diamond composite according to claim 12 , wherein the uniform surface area roughness is <4 microns.

14 . A diamond composite article formed from a lithographic based manufacturing method comprising a layered microstructure resultant from i) a stepwise irradiation curing of a slurry containing diamond particles followed by ii) de-binding and iii) Si-infiltration at vacuum and sintering at <150 bar.

15 . A diamond composite article selected from wear parts, medical implants, rock drilling objects, inserts or objects for cutting, turning, drilling and the processing of hard materials manufactured according to the method of claim 1 .

16 . (canceled)

Assignees

• Sandvik Intellectual Property

Inventors

• Sundstrom Johan
• Martensson Malin

Classifications

• B22F10/66

  by mechanical means · CPC title

• B29C64/129 Primary

  characterised by the energy source therefor, e.g. by global irradiation combined with a mask · CPC title

• B22F10/12

  by photopolymerisation, e.g. stereolithography [SLA] or digital light processing [DLP] · CPC title

• B01J3/062 Primary

  characterised by the composition of the materials to be processed · CPC title

• B22F3/008

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic