Manifattura Additiva di componenti vetrosi innovativi

Additive manufacturing is increasingly seen as production technique rather than a rapid prototyping option thanks to the greater geometric freedom it offers and the possibility of creating net shape components. Ceramic materials exhibit outstanding properties such as thermal and electrical insulation, hardness and chemical and thermal resistance; however, their processing requires high temperatures and expensive tools. Novel manufacturing routes for ceramics are therefore highly investigated but still poorly applied especially for glasses since their optical properties are easily negatively affected by these processes. The present thesis aims at the development of photocurable solutions that can make use of high resolution additive manufacturing technologies to fabricate transparent glass components that can be used as lenses or design pieces. During the research work, two complementary approaches were developed, one employing both solid and liquid silica sources, the other only relying on liquid reagents. The first method was successfully used to produce pure silica components both via casting and UV curing and via Digital Light Processing. Transparency of such objects is influenced by the process: casted components possess high transmittance wile 3D printed ones could benefit of polishing to display the optical properties of the material. In order to overcome the limits on the viscosity and composition of the first approach, a fully liquid system based on sol-gel was developed. Since sol-gel reactions actively influenced the behavior of the mixtures due to the use of a hybrid acrylate, the photocurable solutions required several optimizations. While the fabrication of samples via Digital Light Processing is still to be accomplished due to the huge number of influencing factors, transparent components made of pure silica, of silica-zirconia and of ternary, coloured glasses were successfully obtained via casting and UV curing. The research work carried out in this PhD thesis has been sponsored by D. Swarovski KG, in the framework of a research contract between Swarovski and the Department of Industrial Engineering.