Tape Casting
One of the most well-known and used method to manufacture multilayered ceramic components is the doctor-blade tape casting technique. Glenn N. Howatt is regarded as the godfather of tape casting and established this processing method in 1947[1] and also filed the first patent in 1948[2]. A plentiful variety of electronic components like multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC), actuators (MLA), varistors (MLV) or tapes for low/high temperature cofired ceramics (LTCC, HTCC) can be manufactured.
Contents
Components of a tape caster
Tape casting machine
Tape casting machines are assembled in different scales. Usually big industrial companies have continuous tape casters with a length of several hundred meters. However, in academic research much smaller lab-scale tape caster are used which can range from half a meter to several meters in length.
Continuous as well as discontinuous tapes can be prepared with lab-scale tape casters. For continuous tapes, guide rollers and rollers with the carrier substrate are needed. If discontinuous tapes are produced, carrier substrate sheets can be used likewise.
Carrier substrate
![](/ceramics/images/thumb/9/99/Schematic_doctor_blading.png/300px-Schematic_doctor_blading.png)
Reservoir
Doctor-blade
Drying chamber
Process of tape casting
Slip delivery
Casting
Drying
Quality assessment
optical check, bubbles, orange peel, cracking, homogeneity, bendable, strechable, handable, homogeneous green sheet thickness, green density
References
- ↑ [1] Howatt, G.N., Breckenridge, R.G. and Brownlow, J.M. (1947), FABRICATION OF THIN CERAMIC SHEETS FOR CAPACITORS. Journal of the American Ceramic Society, 30: 237-242.
- ↑ [2] Howatt, G.N., Method of Producing High Dielectric High Insulation Ceramic Plates, U.S. Patent 2,582,993 (filed October 29, 1948).
- ↑ [3] Mistler, R.E. (1995), The principles of tape casting and tape casting applications. In: Terpstra, R.A., Pex, P.P.A.C., de Vries, A.H. (eds) Ceramic Processing. Springer, Dordrecht.