Ceramics are compounds or metallic and non metallic elements.

The term ceramics comes form a Greek word Keramos, meaning potters clay, and keramikos, meaning clay products. Ceramic refer both to the material and the product itself. Because of the large number of combination of elements, a wide variety of ceramics is now available fro a broad range of consumer and industrial applications. The earliest use of ceramic was in pottery and in bricks dating back to before 4000BC. Ceramics has been used or many years in automotives where it was used for making spark plugs, and for its high temperature strength. They have become increasingly important in tool and die materials, heat engines and automotives components such as exhaust port liners, ported pistons, cylinder liners. Ceramics can be divided into two general categories: 1. Traditional ceramics (whiteware, tilesw brick, sewer pipe, pottery, anmd abrasive wheels. 2. Industrial ceramics (engineering, high tech or fine ceramics) such as a turbine, automotive, and aerospace components, heat exchanges semiconductors, seals and cutting tools. Ceramics contain atoms of different sizes where the bonding is either ionic (bonding between oppositely charged particles creating strong bonds) or covalent ( electron sharing producing strong bonds). Because of this these bonds are considerably stronger than metallic bonds, thus properties such as hardness a electrical and thermal resistance, are higher in ceramics.

Raw Materials Clay, which is one of the oldest materials for making ceramics, has a fine-grained steel like structure. The most common example is the kaolinitre (from kayolin, a hill in china). It is a whit clay consisting of silicate of aluminum, with alternating weakly-bonded layers of silicon and aluminum ions. When added to kaolinite, water attaches itself to the layers (adsorption) that makes the layer slippery and gives wet clay its well know softness and plastic properties (hydroplasticity) that make it formable. Other major raw materials for ceramics that are found in nature are:

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Flint it is a rock composed of very fine grain silica, SiO2. Feldspar A group of crystalline materials consisting of aluminum silicate plus potassium,. Calcium and sodium

Porcelain is a white ceramic composed of kaolin, quartz, and feldspar. It largely used in appliances and sanitary ware. In their natural state, these raw materials generally contain impurities of various kinds, which have to be removed prior to further processing of the material into useful products with reliable performance.

Applications Industrial applications Used in electrical and electronics industries, because they have high electrical resistivity, high die electric strengths and magnetic properties suitable for such applications such as the magnets of speakers. High temperature application Ceramics maintains their strength and stiffness at elevated temperatures. The higher operating temperatures made possible by ceramic components mean a more efficient burning of fuels and reduce automotive emissions. Ceramic Coating of metals This is done to reduce wear prevent corrosion, or provide a thermal barrier. The tiles on the space shuttle for example are made of silica fibers having an open cellular structure that consists of five percent silica. The rest of the tile structure is air so the tile is not only very light in weight but is also an excellent heat barrier. The tiles are bonded to the aluminum skin of the space shuttle with several layers of silicon adhesives. The skin temperature of the shuttle reaches 100 degrees Celsius. To reduce weight and improve efficiency Ceramic are of low density and high elastic modulus, which enables engine weight to be reduced, and in other applications allows the inertia forces generated to be lower.

Ceramic turbochargers are 40 percent lighter than conventional ones. High-speed components for machines tools are also made from ceramics. Furthermore the high elastic modulus of ceramics makes them attractive for improving the stiffness of machines, while reducing the weight. Used to reduce wear They are used in applications to reduce wear such as cylinder liners, bushings, seals, bearings, liners and for gun barrels. Replace Joints in the human body Ceramics are used as bio materials to replace joints in the human body because of their strength and inertness

General Characteristics of Ceramic Processing Process ADVANTAGES Large parts, complex shapes Low equipment cost Hollow shapes and small Diameters, high production rates Complex shapes, Close tolerances, high production rates with automation High production rates Wet pressing Strong, high density parts Hot pressing Isotatic pressing Uniform density distribution LIMITATIONS low production Limited dimensional

Slip Casting

Parts have constant cross-section , limited thickness Density variation in parts with length to diameter ratios, dies require abrasive wear resistance. Equipment can be costly Limited part size and dimensional accuracy, tooling cost can be high Protective atmosphere is required, die life can be short and equipment can be costly

Extrusion

Dry pressing

Jigering Injection molding

High production rates with automation Complex Shapes, high production rates

Limited to axis metric parts, limited dimensional accuracy Tooling can be costly

Processing of ceramics

Raw Materials The first step in processing ceramics is the crushing (also called comminution or milling) of the raw materials. Wet crushing is more effective because it keeps the particles together and also prevents the suspension of fine particles in the air. The particles then may be sized (passed through a sieve), filtered, and washed. The ground particles are then mixed with additives the function of which are one or more of the following: Binder: for holding ceramic particles together Lubricant: to reduce internal friction between particles during molding and to help remove the part from the mold Wetting Agent: to improve mixing Plasticizer: to make the mix more plastic and formal Agents: to control foaming and sintering Deflocculent: to make the ceramic-water suspension more uniform by Forming,
shaping Drying Firing, sintering Finishing

changing the electrical charges on the particles of clay (so that the particles repel rather than attract each other). Water is added to make the mixture more pourable and less vicious. Typical deflocculents are Na2CO3 and Na2SiO3 in amounts of less than 1%.

Finishing Because firing causes dimensional changes,additional operations may be performed to (a) give the ceramic part its final shape, (b)improve its surface finish and dimensional tolerances, and (c) remove any surface flaws. Although they are hard and brittle, major advances have been made in producing machinable ceramics and grind able ceramics, thus enabling the productions of ceramic components with high dimensional accuracy and a good surface finish. An example is silicon carbide, which can be machined into final shapes from sintered blanks.

Important points to remember concerning ceramic frabrication processes 1 Most ceramics are hard and brittle; thus parts cannot be easil;y machined from standard shapes. Rough machining must be done in the green or un fired state. 2 Forming ceramics into special shapes by molding usually involves the frabracation otf twooling fror that particular part, possibly making one of a kind parts expensive. 3

The presence of binders(like glassy phase) in a fired ceramic lowers its strength. If strength is a selection factor, the percentage of theoretical density should be specified and controlled. 4 Sintering of ceramic parts usually involves a size change. They can shrink as much as 30%. For this reason fired ceramics parts are difficult to make to close dimensional requirements. (Tolerance are typically +/- 1% + allowance for distortion.)

Uses Or Ceramics Electrical Refactories Building materials Flooring/tiling- in construction for tiling floors Abrasives Cutting tools Engineering Ceramics- like gears Glasses- drinking glasses Earthen Wares- flower pots plates dishes Electrical