Green machining of ceramics

Based on its history of dental implants manufacturing in the days of formerly Diadem, Cerafast has developed an expertise in green and pre-sintered machining (before sintering) of aluminium oxides (96 % and 99.7 % alumina), alumina-zirconia composites (ZTA) and zirconium oxides (Y-TZP zirconia). The manufacturing techniques are based on using precision 3-axes and 5-axes NC machines to manufacture components that are used in diverse application markets.

Ceramic forming techniques are mainly based on powder pressing which does not allow to easily produce prototypes or pre-production quantities at low cost and short lead times, because of expensive and complex tooling.

Cerafast can offer an alternative route with precision green machining which does not require expensive tooling and allows us to implement 3D and CAD/CAM engineering techniques with ceramics. We have a range of computer tools that allows us to get access to this technology like most prototyping technologies. We use a 3D or STL file that the customer supplies us with to develop a machining program for our Very High Speed NC machines.

This process also leads to the manufacturing of complex shape parts which are not achievable by pressing or post-sintering machining.

Mastering of the shrinkage during sintering gives the benefit of achieving high levels of precision after sintering down to 0.01 mm.

Another benefit can be getting rid of or reducing post-sintering grinding to the bare minimum whenever the specified accuracy and geometry of the part comply with this. This technology offers production of both single prototype to a few thousand parts production runs.