Sintering of 3 <scp>D</scp> ‐Printed Glass/ <scp>HA</scp> p Composites

Abstract

We report the sintering of 3 D ‐printed composites of 13‐93 bioactive glass and hydroxyapatite ( HA p) powders. The sintering process is characterized on conventionally produced powder compacts with varying HA p content. A numeric approximation of the densification kinetics is then obtained on the basis of Frenkel, Mackenzie–Shuttleworth, and Einstein–Roscoe models, and optimized sintering conditions for 3 D ‐printed structures are derived. Fully isotropic sintering of complex cellular composites is obtained by continuous heating to 750°C at a rate of 2 K/min for a HA p content of 40 wt%. The approach can readily be generalized for printing and sintering of similar glass‐ceramic composites.