Ceramic tape casting: A review of current methods and trends with emphasis on rheological behaviour and flow analysis

Tape casting has been used to produce thin layers of ceramics that can be used as single layers or can be stacked and laminated into multilayered structures. Today, tape casting is the basic fabrication process that provides multilayered capacitors and multilayered ceramic packages. In tape casting the rheological behaviour of the slurry as well as the material flow during casting are of utmost importance since these phenomena to a large extent determine the final properties and hence the quality of the cast product. During the last decades this has led to an increasing number of works in literature within fluid flow analysis of tape casting. In the present paper a review of the development of the tape casting process with particular focus on the rheological classifications as well as modelling the material flow is hence presented and in this context the current status is examined and future potential discussed.