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Tough and impact-resistant ceramic systems offer a wide range of remarkable opportunities beyond those offered by the conventional brittle ceramics. However, despite their promise, the availability of traditional manufacturing technique for fabricating such advanced ceramic structures in a highly controllable and scalable manner poses a significant manufacturing bottleneck. In this study, a precise and programmable laser manufacturing system was used to manufacture topologically interlocking ceramics. This manufacturing strategy offers feasible mechanisms for a precise material architecture and quantitative process control, particularly when scalability is considered. An optimized material removal method that approaches near-net shaping was employed to fabricate topologically interlocking ceramic systems (load-carrying assemblies of building blocks interacting by contact and friction) with different architectures (i.e., interlocking angles and building block sizes) subjected to low-velocity impact conditions. These impacts were evaluated using 3D digital image correlation. The optimal interlocked ceramics exhibited a higher deformation (up to 310%) than the other interlocked ones advantageous for flexible protections. Their performance was tuned by controlling the interlocking angle and block size, adjusting the frictional sliding, and minimizing damage to the building blocks. In addition, the developed subtractive manufacturing technique leads to the fabrication of tough, impact-resistant, damage-tolerant ceramic systems with excellent versatility and scalability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Developing industrially scalable fabrication laser technique. • Developing a model using laser schemes for precise and ablated cut geometries. • The kerf taper is dependent on the cut depth and wobble amplitude. • Obtaining maximum material removal rate of 10 mm3/min for a cut in thick ceramics. Traditional machining techniques pose significant drawbacks when applied to ceramics due to the material's inherent brittleness. Specialized laser machining has been known to solve these issues through higher precision and micrometer-scale feature control. In this study, a picosecond fiber laser has been proposed as a near-net shaping material removal system for different engineering applications of industrial grade alumina ceramics with a variety of thicknesses and feature dimensions. This article particularly focuses on optimizing picosecond laser processing parameters (i.e., wobble amplitude, wobble frequency, wobble pitch, linear speed and number of passes) that were implemented to obtain ablated, deep, smooth and defect-free designed cut geometries (i.e., kerf taper and cut depth) with a high degree of precision. The surface roughness was assessed to determine the quality of the cuts. The optimal process parameters between the quality and material removal rate were introduced. Using a circular wobble laser pattern, it was determined that a greater cut depth can be achieved at lower linear speeds and wobble frequencies due to the higher linear energy density. It has also been found that the kerf taper is dependent on the cut depth and wobble amplitude, where the measured cuts follow the geometric relation between these parameters accurately. In addition, a maximum material removal rate of ~ 10 mm3/min was achieved to make a desired ablated cut profile in the alumina ceramic tiles as thick as 2.54 mm (0.1 in). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]