Journal of the European Ceramic Society 41 (2021) 466–471

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Journal of the European Ceramic Society

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Original Article

Effects of SiO2 inclusions on sintering and permeability of NiCuZn ferrite for T

additive manufacturing of power magnets
Lanbing Liua,b,*, Khai D.T. Ngob,c, Guo-Quan Lua,b,c
a
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA
b
Center for Power Electronics Systems, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA
c
The Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: 3D-printing has the potential to ease fabrication of novel magnetic components that lead to miniaturization of
Additive manufacturing power electronic devices. The main challenge lies in the lack of functional magnetic feedstock that has many
ferrite inductor cores choices of different magnetic permeabilities. NiCuZn ferrite feedstock was developed of which the permeability
rigid inclusions was tailored by adding different fractions of silica particles. This paper developed a formulation guideline of the
tailoring permeability
feedstock, which prescribes the fraction of silica to add from the target permeability of the feedstock. To study
guideline
the mechanisms of the effects of silica on permeability of the ferrite feedstock, the feedstock was 3D printed into
toroid cores and the permeability, density, and microstructure were characterized. Formulas from existing
models describing the different aspects of the silica’s effects on the ferrite were evaluated and combined to build
the guideline. The guideline accurately predicted permeability of the composite ferrite when silica was < 10 wt.
% of the ferrite.

1. Introduction number of reports about AM of power magnetic components [10–13]. A

As necessary elements in power converters, magnetic components
usually take up 30%-50% of the volume of a converter, and have be-
come the main obstacle for miniaturization of power electronic devices.
One way to reduce size of magnetic components is to apply un-
conventional, novel designs of magnetic components [1–7]. For ex-
ample, a novel design requires a magnetic core to have different mag-
netic permeabilities in different regions, unlike a conventional
magnetic core made from only one material with a single permeability.
[8] reported a hetero-magnetic coupled inductor design where the core
had 2 permeabilities and showed a 50% reduction in footprint com-
pared to a commercial 2-phase coupled inductor. [9] reported a 3-
permeability inductor which had more than twice of the inductance of a
single-permeability inductor with the same dimension. These novel
designs, however, are difficult to be made by conventional fabrication
methods of magnetic components. Magnetic cores are conventionally
formed by powder compaction in dies or molds, followed by heat
treatments. The limited shapes and dimensions of dies and molds make
it inflexible to fabricate novel designs of magnetic cores.
Additive manufacturing (AM) has proved its potential to fabricate
objects with special structures or materials that could not be achieved
by conventional manufacturing. Recent years, there is a growing
huge advantage of AM is that it can easily fabricate multiple materials
into a single object with flexible structures and dimensions. To print a
multi-permeability magnetic core, all needed is to extrude different
magnetic materials in different locations of the magnetic core. The
challenge of this method lies in the magnetic material feedstock for
printing. The magnetic feedstock should be compatible with an extru-
sion type 3D printer, have sufficient functionality for making functional
magnetic cores, and have many different permeability choices. More
ideally, the feedstock’s permeability can be easily tailored to different
values according to different needs. Reported in [14], a 3-permeability
ferrite toroid core was 3D printed using ferrite feedstock with different
permeabilities achieved by adding different fractions of silica particles
in the feedstock. With non-magnetic phase embedded in the ferrite
magnetic material, permeability of the ferrite was effectively reduced.
The inductances of a wire-wound 3-permeability core fabricated by 3D
printing well matched the simulation results of the design. The only
difficulty was that the fraction of added silica had to be decided by trial
and error to achieve a target permeability of the feedstock.
Thus in this paper, we focused on obtaining the quantitative re-
lationship between the fraction of added silica and the permeability of
the feedstock. This would enable us to design the formulation of the
feedstock for a target permeability. Since ferrite feedstock requires post-

⁎
Corresponding author at: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA.
E-mail address: lanbing@vt.edu (L. Liu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeurceramsoc.2020.08.004
Received 8 June 2020; Received in revised form 27 July 2020; Accepted 1 August 2020
Available online 11 August 2020
0955-2219/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
L. Liu, et al. Journal of the European Ceramic Society 41 (2021) 466–471

Nomenclature silica=ρ0/ρfull =0.874

ρm(0) Density of the ferrite matrix just before densification
μc Relative permeability of the composite ferrite core started ≈2.12 g/cm3 for all wi ≠ 0.
μm Relative permeability of the ferrite matrix ρ0(0) ρm(0) when no silica were added to the ferrite ≈2.12 g/
μSiO2 Relative permeability of silica = 1 cm3.
μfull Relative permeability of fully densified ferrite core when ρfull Density of fully densified ferrite core (porosity is 0) ≈5.3
porosity is 0 g/cm3
wi Weight percentage of silica inclusion in the sintered ρSiO2 Density of silica = 2.65 g/cm3
composite ferrite core ρ̄SiO2 Relative density of silica= ρSiO2/ρfull =0.5
ρm
vi Volume fraction of silica inclusion in composite ferrite P Porosity of ferrite = 1 −
wi ρfull

core vi =
ρSiO2 N Demagnetization factor
1 − wi wi
ρm
+
ρSiO2
A =N/P
v(t) Instantaneous volume fraction of inclusion during sin- Β Ratio of creep rate to densification rate of matrix during
tering composite ferrite sintering
ρc Density of composite ferrite core Τ Time constant
ρm orρm(t) Density of sintered ferrite matrix (t means the sintering ε0 (t ) Strain of pure ferrite during sintering.
costs time t) Km Bulk viscosity of matrix during sintering
ρ¯m or ρ¯m (t ) Relative density of sintered ferrite matrix =ρm/ρfull Gm Shear viscosity of matrix during sintering
ρ0 orρ0(t) Density of sintered ferrite core without adding silica. The s Percolation threshold ≈0.16
value was 4.63 g/cm3 α Numerical factor
ρ¯0 or ρ¯0 (t ) Relative density of sintered ferrite core without adding

printing sintering at > 900℃ to achieve its functionality, silica particles
had more complex effects on the ferrite than just blending in a non-
magnetic phase. To study these effects, the ferrite feedstock with dif-
ferent fractions of silica were 3D-printed into toroid cores, and their
relative permeability, packing density, and microstructures after sin-
tering were characterized. Based on the experimental data, several
existing formulas were selected to describe different aspects of the ef-
fects, and were combined to build a model predicting permeability of
the feedstock from the added fraction of silica.
MTI Corp.) using zirconia milling media of 5 mm diameter with around
1:1 weight ratio of paste to media.
2.2. Ferrite toroid cores fabrication
Ferrite paste with different fractions of silica was 3D printed by a
paste-extrusion 3D printer (30 M, Hyrel 3D) into toroid cores and he-
ated to 950℃ to burnout all the organic components and sinter, as
shown in Fig. 1(a). Fig. 1(b) shows the post-printing heating profile.

2. Experimental procedure 2.3. Mass density characterization

2.1. Ferrite paste feedstock preparation
The ferrite paste feedstock is composed of commercial NiCuZn fer-
rite powder (LSF50, Powder Processing & Technology, LLC, average
particle size 0.5 μm), commercial silica powder (S153-3, Fisher
Scientific, average particle size 60 μm), monomer binder
(Pentaerythritol tetraacrylate, Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC), and diluent
(Polyethylene glycol 400, Alfa Aesar). Keeping the solid loading of the
powders constant at 75 wt.%, different fractions of ferrite powders were
replaced by silica powders. 7 paste formulations were made with 7
different weight percentages of the silica (0%, 0.2%, 0.5%, 1%, 2%, 5%,
and 10%) in the powders. For uniform mixing, each paste was violently
shaken for 5 minutes in a high speed vibrating ball miller (MSK-SFM-3,
Densities of sintered cores were determined by the measured
weights and volumes. Weights were measured by an electronic balance
(Adventurer Pro AV313, Ohaus) while volumes were calculated from
dimensions measured by a 0-150 mm electronic digital caliper with a
resolution of 0.01 mm. For each paste formulation, densities of 3 sin-
tered cores were characterized and the average and error bars were
calculated.
2.4. Relative permeability characterization
Relative permeability of each sintered core at 1 MHz was obtained
by a precision impedance analyzer (4294A; Agilent, Santa Clara, CA)
with a magnetic material test fixture (16454A; Agilent, Santa Clara,

Fig. 1. (a) Demonstration of a 3D-printed toroid core by the ferrite feedstock. Green density of as-printed cores were around 40%. (b) Post-printing heating profile of
the ferrite cores.

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L. Liu, et al. Journal of the European Ceramic Society 41 (2021) 466–471

Fig. 5. μm versus ρm at different wi and the fitted curve by equation (3). For the
data points, μm were calculated from equation (2) while ρm were calculated
from equation (1).

Fig. 2. μc, μm (calculated from equation (2)), ρc, and ρm (calculated from
equation (1)) versus wi of the composite ferrite cores. ρ̄m ranged from 87.4% to
60.9% as wi varied from 0 to 10.

Fig. 6. ρm versus vi of the ferrite cores and the fitted curve by equation (6). For
the data points, ρm were calculated from equation (1).

Table 1
Expressions of Km/Gm reported in literature.
Fig. 3. Process flow for obtaining μc=F(wi) in 3 steps.
Skorokhod’s [30] Mackenzie’s [31] Rahaman’s [32]

CA). For each paste formulation, relative permeability of 3 sintered Km 4ρ¯m 4ρ¯m
e a0 (1 − ρ¯m)
cores were measured and the average and error bars were calculated. Gm 3(1 − ρ¯m ) (1 − ρ¯m )(5ρ¯m − 2)

2.5. Microstructure characterization 3. Results and discussion

Microstructures of sintered cores were characterized in a scanning
electron microscope (SEM: The FEI Quanta 600 FEG). Samples in
Fig. 4(c) were thermal etched by annealing at the temperature 100 °C
below its peak sintering temperature for 30 minutes to reveal grain
boundaries.
Respectively shown in Fig. 2(a) and (b) are plots of μc and ρc of
sintered composite cores versus wi. Both μc and ρc dropped as wi in-
creased. There were two reasons that μc dropped with wi. One was that
part of magnetic phase was replaced by non-magnetic phase. Since the
fraction of silica was small, this mechanism only contributed a little to
the reduction of μc. The other was that μm was also reduced by adding

Fig. 4. SEM images of sintered ferrite cores with (a) wi = 0 and (b)(c) wi = 10. (wi shown in the bottom left corners).

468
L. Liu, et al.
Fig. 7. ρm versus wi measured from experiments and calculated from equation
(8) with different expressions of Km/Gm shown in Table 1.
Fig. 8. ρm versus vi of the ferrite cores obtained by experiments and the fitted
curve by equation (9).
Fig. 9. Comparing measured data with model predicted curve.
silica. Since ferrite matrix did not fully densify, the addition of silica
inclusions further retarded densification rate of the ferrite matrix
during sintering thus lowering the final packing density of the sintered
ferrite matrix. To confirm the ρm reduction, we calculated ρm from
measured ρc by:
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Journal of the European Ceramic Society 41 (2021) 466–471
1
ρc = 1 − wi wi
+
ρm ρSiO2 (1)
ρm versus wi are also plotted in Fig. 2(b). Obviously, there were
significant decrease in ρm after adding silica, which could also be
proved by SEM images shown in Fig. 4(a) and Fig. 4(b). It was also
found in SEM images that each silica island was a single particle in-
dicating the silica particles did not densify during sintering of the fer-
rite, as shown in Fig. S1. This was because the densification tempera-
tures of the NiCuZn ferrite [15–17] are much lower than those of silica
[18]. The silica particles behaved as non-densifying, rigid inclusions
during sintering the ferrite matrix. The ferrite matrix was constrained
sintered [19] and the matrix densification was hindered by tensile
stresses generated from the silica inclusions.
With the hypothesis of the mechanisms verified, we can construct
the model that prescribes μc from wi in three steps. The illustration is
shown in Fig. 3. First, based on mixing rules for composites, μc is a
function of μm and wi. Step 2 is for getting μm. In step 2, μm is determined
by μfull and packing density of the ferrite matrix (ratio of ρm to ρfull).
Since ρm is unknown, step 3 is for obtaining ρm. Density of sintered
ferrite matrix with rigid inclusions is determined by the fraction of the
rigid inclusions and the density of the sintered ferrite if no inclusion
were added. Thus in step 3, ρm is a function of ρ0 and wi. The following
sections will show in detail the selection of the formula for each step.
The 3 selected formulas were then be combined to get the μc=F(wi). μc
predicted by the model will be compared with those from experiments.
3.1. Equation selection for each step
Step 1 - As shown in Fig. 4(b) and (c), silica particles much larger
than ferrite grains were dispersed in the ferrite matrix. Since vi were
low (< 12 vol.%), the non-magnetic silica phase formed a dilute dis-
persion in the magnetic continuum. By approximating the shapes of the
silica particles to spheres, the Maxwell Garnett mixing rule [20,21] can
be used to get μc = f1 (wi, μm ) :
wi
μc − μm ρSiO2 μSiO2 − μm
= •
wi 1 − wi
μc + 2μm + μSiO2 + 2μm
ρSiO2 ρm (2)
The calculated μm from measured μc of each composite core are
plotted in Fig. 2(a).
Step 2 - Permeability of the ferrite matrix is determined by both its
packing density and grain size [22]. It was found in SEM images that
there were not much differences in the average grain sizes of ferrite
matrix with different wi, as shown in Fig. S1(c). By assuming a constant
average grain size, we used Igarashi’s [23] well-known relationship
between ferrite’s permeability and porosity to get
μm = f2 ( ρm , ρfull , μfull ) :
ρm
(1 − P )(μfull − 1) ρfull
(μfull − 1)
μm = 1 + = ρm
1 + N (μfull − 1) 1 + A (1 − )(μfull − 1)
ρfull (3)
The fitted curve of μm versus ρm using A and μfull as fitting para-
meters is plotted in Fig. 5. The data points in Fig. 5 were calculated
from measured μc and ρc by equation (2) and (1), respectively. The error
between each data point and the fitted value was small (< 7%) except
for that of the first point (at wi = 10). Since A is determined by average
pore size and may not be the same for the ferrite with different wi, the
deviation at the first data point could be attributed to the assumption of
constant A for different wi.
Step 3 - For a ceramic matrix embedding non-densifying inclusions,
the densification is mainly hindered by inclusion-induced back-stress or
rigid network [19]. Due to differential shrinking between inclusions
and matrix, inclusions generate tensile stresses on the matrix opposing
the compressive sintering stresses. When the fraction of inclusions is
L. Liu, et al. Journal of the European Ceramic Society 41 (2021) 466–471

very low, back-stress is the main mechanism for resisting densification Km/Gm reported in literature. Table 1 listed 3 expressions of Km/Gm.
of the matrix. When inclusions occupy high enough volume fraction to The calculated ρm versus wi from equation (8) with different ex-
form a rigid percolating network throughout the matrix, the non- pressions of Km/Gm are plotted in Fig. 7. Also plotted are experimental
shrinking network becomes the main obstacle for densification. Based data (red dots) of the ferrite cores. Scherer’s model with either Skor-
on these principles, several people have built physical or geometrical okhod’s or Mackenzie’s Km/Gm predicted much higher ρm than the ex-
models that quantitatively links the fraction of non-densifying inclu- perimental results, suggesting that they significantly underestimated
sions to densification of matrix. In this section, we investigated 3 re- the hindering effect of silica on densification of the ferrite. As for using
presentative models from Raj&Bordia [24], Scherer [25], and Lange Rahaman’s Km/Gm, even with a tuning parameter a0, we still could not
[26], respectively. Raj&Bordia and Scherer’s models are based on cal- get the predicted ρm matching the measured ρm, as shown by the best
culating transient stress and strain rates during sintering, while Lange’s matched result (green dots) in Fig. 7.
model focuses on the effect of rigid percolating network. An experimental test [33] of Scherer’s model showed that the model
During sintering ceramics with rigid inclusions, differential densi- performs well for glassy matrixes with low inclusion fractions, but less
fication generates stresses from elastic strain while viscous flow of satisfactorily for polycrystalline matrixes [19]. A probable reason is
matrix seeks to relieve the stress by creep. Thus, many models [24,27] that the purely viscous model overestimates the stress relaxation by
assumed a viscoelastic solution to describe sintering of porous matrix viscous flow and thus underestimates the hinder of densification of
with non-densifying inclusions. The ratio of densification (induces polycrystalline matrixes. A prove is that the maximum back-stress cal-
stress) rate to creep (relieves stress) rate of the matrix is an important culated by Scherer’s model is much smaller than those predicted by
parameter to reflect the degree of the impact of rigid inclusions on viscoelastic models [19,25].
matrix densification. Besides, neither Raj&Bordia nor Scherer’s model can predict the
Raj and Bordia [24] assumed linear viscoelastic behavior of the sharp drop of density of the ferrite matrix at wi < 0.5%. Another pos-
matrix material and obtained the following equations: sible reason for the failure of their models to predict our experiment
data is that they did not consider the effect of rigid percolating network
ρm (t ) − ρm (0) −9βt
= 1 − exp ⎡ ⎤ on sintering. Theoretically, densification rate significantly drops at
ρfull − ρm (0) ⎢
⎣ (4vi + 9β ) τ ⎥
⎦ (4) percolation threshold of the inclusions when inclusions bond together
on contact. However, severely reduced sintering rate can actually occur
ρ0 (t ) − ρ0 (0) −t before percolation threshold (for example when wi < 0.5 for the ferrite
= 1 − exp ⎡ ⎤
ρfull − ρ0 (0) ⎣ τ ⎦ (5) matrix) when inclusions have not touched each other. The reasons in-
clude non-uniform dispersion of inclusions [19] premature densifica-
When vi is 0, equation (4) is reduced to equation (5). Based on their
tion of some matrix regions [34]. Lange presented a purely geometric
sinter-forging experiments on TiO2, Raj and Bordia found two values of
model [26] that account for the effect of constraint network on sin-
β were needed to respectively describe the short-term response and ρ (0) ρ (0)
tering. Since ρc (t ) ≈ ρm (t ) (discrepancies < 4%) for the ferrite cores,
long-term response of the material during sintering [28] The β and τ c m
values for sintering TiO2 were calculated by other parameters measured Lange’s equation can be written as:
from the sinter-forging experiments of TiO2, and were then applied to vi
equation (4) for the case of sintering TiO2 embedding Al2O3. Because ρm (0) ⎛ ρ0 (0) ⎞ ⎛ 3
s
⎞
1− 3 = ⎜1 − 3 ⎜1 − ⎟
we were not able to conduct sinter-forging experiments to get different ρm (t ) ρ0 (t ) ⎟ ⎜ α ⎟
⎝ ⎠ (9)
β values, we assumed only one β value during sintering the ferrite ⎝ ⎠
matrix, and solved exp(-t/τ) from equation (5) to substitute into Percolation usually occurred at 0.16 volume fraction for a random
equation (4). Then equation (4) became: close packed mixture of equiaxial particles [35], to which powder
9β systems undergoing sintering can be approximated [19]. With s = 0.16
ρm (t ) − ρm (0) ⎡ ρ (t ) − ρ0 (0) ⎤4vi + 9β and α as the fitting parameter, the fitted curve is shown in Fig. 8 with
= 1 − ⎢1 − 0
ρfull − ρm (0) ρfull − ρ0 (0) ⎥ (6)
an R-square of 0.9684. Among all the models, Lange’s model resulted in
⎣ ⎦
the best fitted curve to the experimental data.
Fig. 6 shows the fitted curve of ρm(t) versus vi by equation (6) with For the experimental data Lange used to prove his model, however,
the fitting parameter β. A curve cannot be found that matched well to Lange found α was not constant but decreased as vi increased. He cal-
the data. This showed assuming one β probably oversimplified the culated α back from the measured densities of ZnO/SiC composites at
model and made it imprecise. different SiC fractions, and substituted the calculated α at different vi
Because of the complexity with viscoelastic analysis, Scherer [25] into equation (9) to plot out ρc versus sintering time t, which showed
developed a model based on purely viscous response of the matrix good agreement with his measured ρc versus t. Since Lange used only
material considering that elastic strain is usually much smaller than one set of experiment to verify the model, α’s decreasing trend with the
viscous strain during sintering: fraction of inclusions was not proved universal. To thoroughly verify
dρ¯m (t ) dε (t )
the applicability of Lange’s model to our data, measuring instantaneous
0
dt dε0 (t ) v (t ) dt densities during sintering is required.
= −3 +
ρ¯m (t ) dt 1
Km 4G + ( m
v (t )
3Km ) (7)
3.2. Comparing the model prediction with the experimental data
wi dρ¯0 (t )
ρ¯SiO2 −3dε0 (t ) dt
Since v (t ) = 1 − wi wi and dt
= dρ¯0 (t )
, equation (7) can also be After selecting the equations for the three steps, we combined the
+
ρ¯m (t ) ρ¯SiO2
three equations (equation 2, 3, and 9) to obtain the final model that
written as:
predicted μc from wi. Plotted in Fig. 9 are the μc versus wi curve pre-
3Km ρ¯m (t ) dicted by the model and the data obtained by experiments. Compared
4Gm
+ 1 − wi
ρ¯m (t ) + ρ¯SiO2
wi dρ¯0 (t ) with experimental data, the errors of model prediction were < 7% ex-
3K
dρ¯m (t ) =
ρ¯m (t ) 4Gm ρ¯0 (t ) cept for the rightmost data point (the error was 19%). The bigger error
m (8)
at wi = 10 mainly came from the error from equation (3), as shown by
Similar to β in Raj&Bordia’s model, Km/Gm also characterizes the the left most data point in Fig. 5. To verify the model, we measured μc of
ratio of creep rate to densification rate of matrix during sintering. Km/ a 3D-printed a ferrite core with wi = 8 and compared it with the model
Gm is usually a function of ρ¯m (t ) . There are different expressions [29] of prediction. As shown by the red square dot in Fig. 9, μc predicted by the

470
L. Liu, et al.
model was only 7% higher than the experimental value. The model had
good accuracy when wi < 10 but may predict too high μc when wi > 10
from the trend shown in Fig. 9. This was probably because the effect of
silica on ferrite became different when silica was not diluent in the
ferrite.
4. Summary
For the convenience of formulating ferrite feedstock for printing
novel ferrite inductor cores, we developed a practical model predicting
permeability of ferrite feedstock from the fraction of added silica.
Applying the model requires first measuring permeabilities of the sin-
tered feedstock at several fractions of silica, then fitting the measured
data by the 3 selected formulas to get the fitting parameters. Then
permeabilities of the feedstock at all other fractions of silica can be
predicted. The model predicted the permeability accurately when the
fraction of silica added in the ferrite powder was less than 10 wt.%,
probably because the effects of silica on ferrite was different when
larger fraction of silica was added. The approach could be helpful for
developing formulation guidance of functional graded ceramic feed-
stock by blending in a rigid second phase.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors report no declarations of interest.
Acknowledgment
This work is supported by National Science Foundation under grant
no. 1507314.
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