Fast in situ nanothermographies of 3D printed structures during a heat treament up to 1000°C for investigating their sintering

The CEA and the IRCER are interested in the 3D printing of ceramic structures in order to look for innovative heat exchangers applied to the energy transition. The chosen technique is stereolithography, which uses a polymer resin loaded with silica microparticles. To obtain ceramics, a heat treatment is applied to eliminate the organic part and to promote the formation of bridges between microparticles by sintering. In order to ensure the mechanical properties, it is important to control the heat treatment parameters (temperature, speed and heating time) as they influence the final microstructure of the ceramic object. The objective of high resolution tomographic measurements on beamline ID16B is to access the evolution of the microstructure (neck growth at the early stages of sintering) in situ at different times during the application of the heating profile up to 1000°C. This data will help to validate a model of sintering behavior using the discrete element method.