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At the joint Fraunhofer booth (Hall 11.0, Booth D31), Fraunhofer IKTS will showcase its expertise in adapting additive manufacturing processes for ceramic materials and hybridizing components made of multiple materials.
Frankfurt am Main
November 18, 2025 - November 21, 2025
Due to their properties - high youngs modulus, high hardness and high strength - ceramic materials are known to be suitable for protective equipment and armor in the defense and security sector. Fraunhofer IKTS offers several variants of additive shaping processes known as CerAMfacturing, in which complex components can be produced in small or medium quantities by hybridizing materials or processes. Of particular interest are lightweight equipment of high hardness made of SiC and B4C for passive body armor. Additive Manufacturing methods for the production of large-volume components, such as powder-bed-based binder jetting (BJT) and material-extruding fused filament fabrication (FFF), are used for this purpose. Diamond/SiC composites, which are currently the main focus of ongoing developments, offer particularly good ballistic protection.
Harsh environmental conditions with high thermal, chemical, and/or mechanical stresses are a challenge in almost all areas of industry. Highly integrated sensor systems with metallic or polymer components reach their limits here and make real-time data acquisition difficult. Functionalized 3D ceramic components, on the other hand, meet the requirements for robustness, miniaturization, and reliability. Through the targeted selection of materials and a combination of additive manufacturing and thick-film technology, they combine chemical and thermal resistance, high hardness, low density, or specific biological properties with highly complex geometries for the first time.
Based on the combination of ceramic vat photopolymerization (CerAM VPP) and freeze foaming, precisely fitting, mechanically stable bone replacement materials have been developed for use as load-bearing jawbones. As a result of animal testing in the lower jaw, a generic hybrid implant has now been developed as a demonstrator for the pig jaw.
Powder Bed Fusion – Laser Beam (PBF-LB) is an established AM process in the field of plastic and metal printing, in which materials in powder form are melted by a laser in a powder bed. At Fraunhofer IKTS, this forming process has now been made usable for the production of silicon-infiltrated silicon carbide ceramics (SiSiC). This was not possible before because SiC is not fusible and forms passivating oxide layers at high temperatures.
At Fraunhofer IKTS, SiC powders have been developed that have high flowability due to their roundness and are ideal for powder bed-based manufacturing processes. The SiC powders were then coated with a special novolak. This resin is thermoplastically meltable and can also be processed into a duromer. The starting material can be processed using a conventional PBF-LB system. After additive shaping, the components produced in this way can be converted into silicon carbide components with properties corresponding to those of conventionally shaped components by means of conventional pyrolysis and siliconization.
In order to meet the constantly growing demand for more efficient and cost-effective components in the aerospace sector, the focus is increasingly being placed on the additive manufacturing of complex functionalized components made of high-performance materials. With the Multi Material Jetting technology at Fraunhofer IKTS, a large number of different combinations of properties can be realized in a single component in a single production step. This enables the additive manufacturing of electrically functional, fully ceramic multi-material components. These include, for example, various heating and ignition elements.
Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS