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Ceramic Engineering is the technology of manufacturing and usage of ceramic materials. The word ceramic is derived from the Greek word κεραμικός ( keramikos) Many engineering applications benefit from ceramics characteristics as a material. The characteristics of ceramics have garnered attention from engineers across the world, including those in the fields: Electrical Engineering, Materials Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and many others. Electrical engineering, sometimes referred to as electrical and electronic engineering, is a field of Engineering that deals with the study and application of Materials Science or Materials Engineering is an interdisciplinary field involving the properties of matter and its applications to various areas of Science and Chemical engineering is the branch of Engineering that deals with the application of Physical science (e Mechanical Engineering is an Engineering discipline that involves the application of principles of physics for analysis Design, Manufacturing Highly regarded for being resistant to heat, ceramics can be used for many demanding tasks that other materials like Metal and Polymers can not. The M acro E xpansion T emplate A ttribute L anguage complements TAL, providing macros which allow the reuse of code across A polymer is a large Molecule ( Macromolecule) composed of repeating Structural units typically connected by Covalent Chemical bonds

Traditional ceramic raw materials include clay minerals such as kaolinite, more recent materials include aluminium oxide, more commonly known as alumina. The modern ceramic materials, which are classified as advanced ceramics, include silicon carbide and tungsten carbide. Both are valued for their abrasion resistance, and hence find use in applications such as the wear plates of crushing equipment in mining operations. Advanced ceramics are also used in the medicine, electrical and electronics industries.

Ceramic Engineers are found in a wide variety of manufacturing, research and educational fields. These include mining, aerospace, medicine, refinery, food industry, chemical industry, packaging science, electronics, industrial electricity, and transmission electricity.

Contents

The Ceramic Process

A general definition of a ceramic material could be: A ceramic is any inorganic crystalline oxide material. It is solid and inert. Ceramic materials are brittle, hard, strong in compression, weak in shearing and tension. They withstand chemical erosion that occur in an acidic or caustic environment. In many cases withstanding erosion from the acid and bases applied to it. Ceramics generally can withstand very high temperatures such as temperatures that range from 1,000°C to 1,600°C (1,800°F to 3,000°F). Exceptions include inorganic materials that do not have oxygen such silicon carbide. Glass by definition is not a ceramic because it is an amorphous solid (non-crystalline). However, glass involves several steps of the ceramic process and its mechanical properties behave similarly to ceramic materials.

The ceramic process generally follows this flow.

Milling→ Batching→ Mixing→ Forming→ Drying→ Firing→ Assembly→

Milling is the process by which materials are reduced from a larger size to a smaller size. Milling may involve breaking up cemented material, thus the individual particle retain their shape or pulverization which involves grinding the particles themselves to a smaller size. Pulverization is actually fracturing the grains and breaking them down.

Generally milling is done through mechanical means. The means include attrition which is particle to particle collision that results in agglomerate break up or particle shearing. Compression which is applying compressive forces that result in break-up or fracturing. Another means is impact which involves a milling media -or the particles themselves- that cause break up or fracturing.

Examples of equipment that achieve attrition milling is a planetary mill or an wet attrition mill, also called wet scrubber. A wet scrubber is a machine that has paddles in water turning in opposite direction causing two vortexes turning into each other. The material in the vortex collide and break up.

Equipment that achieve compression milling include a jaw crusher, roller crusher, and cone crushers.

Finally impact mills may include a ball mill with media that tumble and fracture material. Shaft impactors cause particle to particle attrition and compression which achieve size reduction.

Batching is the process by taking the oxides and weighing them according to recipes and proportions and preparing them for mixing and drying.

Mixing occurs after batching and involve a variety of equipment such as for dry mixing ribbon mixers (a type of cement mixer), Mueller mixers, and pug mills. Wet mixing generally involve the same equipment.

Forming is taking the batched and mixed material and making the material into a shape which can range from toilet bowls to insulators on a spark plug. The forming can involve extrusion such as in extruding "slugs" to make bricks. Pressing to make shaped parts. Slip casting as in making toilet bowls, wash basins and decorative ornamentals like ceramic statues. This step leads to a "green" part that is ready for drying. Green parts are soft plastic, pliable, and will over time lose its shape. The plasticity of green product means that when handled the product will change shape. For example a green brick can be "squeezed" and after squeezing it will stay that way.

Drying is removing the water or binder from the formed material. Spray drying is widely used to prepare powder for pressing operations. Spray drying is a commonly used method of drying a liquid feed through a hot gas Other dryers are tunnel dryers and periodic dryers. Controlled heat is applied in this process that takes two stages in the case where water is removed. First, heat removes physical water. This step needs careful control as rapid heating leads to cracks and surface defects. The dried part is now smaller than the green part and is now significantly brittle. These dried parts need to be handled carefully as little impact will cause crumbling and breaking.

Firing is a process where the dried parts pass through a controlled heating process such that the oxides are chemically changed to where there is sintering and bonding. Sintering is a method for making objects from powder, by heating the material (below its Melting point - solid state sintering until its particles adhere The fired part will be smaller than the dried part.

Assembly This process is for parts that require additional subassembly parts. As in the case of a spark plug, the insulator is put onto an electrode that conducts a spark. This step does not apply to all ceramic products.

Ceramics Applications in Engineering

Ceramics can be used in many technological industries. One application are the ceramic tiles on NASA's Space Shuttle, used to protect it and the future supersonic space planes from the searing heat of reentry into the earth's atmosphere. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA, ˈnæsə is an agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's public space program They are also used widely in electronics and optics. In addition to the applications listed here, ceramics are also used as a coating in various engineering cases. An example would be a ceramic bearing coating over a titanium frame used for an airplane. Recently the field has come to include the studies of single crystals or glass fibers, in addition to traditional Polycrystalline materials, and the applications of these have been overlapping and changing rapidly. Polycrystalline materials are solids that are composed of many Crystallites of varying size and orientation

Aerospace:

Biomedical:

Electronics and Electrical Industry:

Optical/Photonic:

History of Ceramics in Engineering

Ceramics Engineering, like many sciences, evolved from a different discipline by today's standards. A switch is a mechanical device used to connect and disconnect an electric Circuit at will A laser is a device that emits Light ( Electromagnetic radiation) through a process called Stimulated emission. Generally an amplifier or simply amp, is any device that changes usually increases the amplitude of a signal. A lens is an optical device with perfect or approximate Axial symmetry which transmits and refracts Light, converging or diverging Materials Engineering is grouped with Ceramics Engineering to this day. Universities with ceramics programs include a curriculum saturated with materials engineering classes.

The modern day ceramic engineer may find themselves in a variety of industries. Similar to other disciplines a ceramic engineer may find themselves in mining and mineral processing, pharmaceuticals, foods, and chemical operations.

Abraham Darby first used coke in 1709 in Shropshire, England, to improve the yield of a smelting process. Coke is a solid Carbonaceous material derived from Destructive distillation of low-ash low-sulfur Bituminous coal. Coke is now widely used to produce carbide ceramics. Renowned potter Josiah Wedgwood opened the world's first modern ceramics factory in Stoke-on-Trent, England, in 1759. Josiah Wedgwood ( July 12, 1730 - January 3, 1795, born Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent) was an English potter credited Stoke-on-Trent ( often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city in Staffordshire, England which forms a linear Conurbation almost 12 miles (19 Austrian chemist Karl Bayer, working for the textile industry in Russia, developed a process to separate alumina from bauxite ore in 1888. Karl Josef Bayer ( March 4, 1847 - October 4, 1904) was an Austrian chemist that invented the The Bayer process is the principal industrial means of refining Bauxite to produce Alumina. Bauxite is the most important Aluminium Ore. It consists largely of the minerals Gibbsite Al(OH3 Boehmite γ-AlO(OH and The Bayer process is still used to purify alumina for the ceramic and aluminum industries. Brothers Pierre and Jacques Curie discovered piezoelectricity in Rochelle salt circa 1880 in Paris. Pierre Curie (15 May 1859 &ndash 19 April 1906 was a French physicist, a pioneer in Crystallography, Magnetism, Piezoelectricity Piezoelectricity is the ability of some materials (notably Crystals and certain Ceramics including bone to generate an Electric potential in response to Piezoelectricity is one of the key properties of electroceramics. While Ceramics have traditionally been admired for their mechanical and thermal stability their unique Electrical, Optical and Magnetic properties have E.G. Acheson heated a mixture of coke and clay in 1893, and invented carborundum, or synthetic silicon carbide. Edward Goodrich Acheson ( March 9, 1856 - July 6, 1931) was an American Chemist. Clay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained Minerals which show plasticity through a variable range of Water content, and Silicon carbide ( is a compound of Silicon and Carbon bonded together to form Ceramics but it also occurs in nature as the extremely rare mineral Henri Moisson also synthesized SiC and tungsten carbide in his electric arc furnace in Paris about the same time as Acheson. Tungsten carbide, WC, or tungsten semicarbide, W2C, is a chemical compound containing Tungsten and Carbon, similar An electric arc furnace (EAF is a Furnace that heats charged material by means of an Electric arc. Karl Schröter used liquid-phase sintering to bond or "cement" Moissan’s tungsten carbide particles with cobalt in 1923 in Germany. Sintering is a method for making objects from powder, by heating the material (below its Melting point - solid state sintering until its particles adhere Cemented (metal-bonded) carbide edges greatly increase the durability of hardened steel cutting tools. For the Software development tool targeting the Symbian OS, see Carbide The term hardened steel is often used for a medium or high carbon Steel that has been given the heat treatments of Quenching followed by Tempering W.H. Nernst developed cubic-stabilized zirconia (CSZ) in the 1920s in Berlin. Walther Hermann Nernst ( June 25, 1864 &ndash November 18, 1941) was a German Physicist who is known for his theories Cubic zirconia (or CZ) the cubic crystalline form of Zirconium dioxide ( ZrO2) is a Mineral that is widely synthesized Zirconia redirects here For the Sailor Moon character see Dead Moon Circus. CSZ is used as an oxygen sensor in exhaust systems. W. D. Kingery and others in the 1950s developed partially-stabilized zirconia (PSZ), greatly increasing its toughness. Toughness, in Materials science and Metallurgy, is the resistance to Fracture of a material when stressed. PSZ is used to make cutlery and other tools. Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) was developed at the United States National Bureau of Standards in 1954. Lead zirconate titanate ( 0 x Ceramic Perovskite material that shows a marked piezoelectric effect. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the PZT is used as an ultrasonic transducer, as its piezoelectric properties greatly exceed those of Rochelle salt. A transducer is a device usually electrical, electronic, Electro-mechanical, Electromagnetic, Photonic, or Photovoltaic [1]

The first ceramic engineering course and department in the United States were established by Edward Orton, Jr., a professor of geology and mining engineering, at the Ohio State University in 1894. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Edward Orton Jr ( October 8 1863, Chester, New York – February 10 1932, Columbus Ohio) was a prominent Columbus The Ohio State University ( OSU) is a Coeducational public Research university in the state of Ohio. Orton and eight other refractory professionals founded the American Ceramic Society (ACerS) at the 1898 National Brick Manufacturers' Association convention in Pittsburgh. The American Ceramic Society (ACerS is a non-profit professional organization for the ceramics community with a focus on scientific research emerging technologies and current Orton was the first ACerS General Secretary, and his office at OSU served as the society headquarters in the beginning. Charles F. Binns established the New York State School of Clay-Working and Ceramics, now Alfred University, in 1900. Alfred University is a small comprehensive university in the Village of Alfred in Western New York, United States, an hour south of Binns was the third ACerS president, and Orton the 32nd. [2] The Ceramic Society of Japan was founded in 1891 in Tokyo. Deutschen Keramischen Gesellschaft, the ceramic society of Germany, was founded in Berlin in 1919.

The military requirements of World War II (1939-1945) encouraged developments, which created a need for high-performance materials and helped speed the development of ceramic science and engineering. A military is an Organization authorized by its Nation to use force usually including use of Weapons in defending its Country (or by attacking World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Throughout the 1960s and 1970's, new types of ceramics were developed in response to advances in atomic energy, electronics, communications, and space travel. The discovery of ceramic superconductors in 1986 has spurred intense worldwide research to develop superconducting ceramic parts for electronic devices, electric motors, and transportation equipment.

Preceding the spark of the ceramic industry in the late 19th century, there was the study of materials closely associated with chemistry. Chemistry (from Egyptian kēme (chem meaning "earth") is the Science concerned with the composition structure and properties Since Ceramics are comprised of a crystalline structure, the knowledge of how crystals are formed and the strengths involved was important in the development of ceramics as a standalone scientific field. In Mineralogy and Crystallography, a crystal structure is a unique arrangement of Atoms in a Crystal.

Present Day Ceramics Engineering

Now a multi-billion dollar a year industry, ceramics engineering and research has established itself as an important field of science. Applications continue to expand as researchers develop new kinds of ceramics to serve different purposes. An incredible number of ceramics engineering products have made their way into modern life. The largest producers of engineered ceramics--and largest employers of ceramic engineers--include AVX, CeramTec, CoorsTek, Corning, EDO, Kohler, Kyocera, Morgan Crucible, Murata and Saint-Gobain. Corning Incorporated ( is an American manufacturer of Glass, Ceramics and related materials primarily for industrial and scientific applications EDO Corporation was an American company which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of ITT Corporation ( The Kohler Company is a manufacturing company in Kohler Wisconsin is a Japanese company based in Kyoto, Japan. The company was founded as in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori. Morgan Technical Ceramics (MTC is a division of The Morgan Crucible Company plc, comprising Morgan Advanced Ceramics (MAC and Morgan Electro Ceramics ( is a Japanese electronic part specialized producer in Nagaokakyo Kyoto. Saint-Gobain SA ( is a French Multinational corporation, founded in 1665 in Paris and headquartered on the outskirts of Paris at La

Education

Many educational institutions in the United States offer degrees in this field, examples being the New York State College of Ceramics located at Alfred University, and Rutgers University, and there are several in other countries. Alfred University is a small comprehensive university in the Village of Alfred in Western New York, United States, an hour south of Rutgers The State University of New Jersey (also known as Rutgers University) is the largest institution for higher education in the state of New Jersey Some of these institutions are planning to change the names of their disciplines to Materials science, "Materials engineering" or Materials Science and Engineering (MS&E). Materials Science or Materials Engineering is an interdisciplinary field involving the properties of matter and its applications to various areas of Science and Clemson University and the Missouri University of Science and Technology[3] offer Ceramic Engineering Major & Materials Minor.

See also

Further reading

References

  1. ^ John B. Wachtman, Jr. , ed. , Ceramic Innovations in the 20th Century, The American Ceramic Society, 1999.
  2. ^ The American Ceramic Society: 100 Years, American Ceramic Society, 1998, p 169-173, ISBN 1-888903-04-X.
  3. ^ *Brow, Richard K. . Ceramic Engineering at the University of Missouri-Rolla (PDF). Archived from the original on 2003-06-25. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 524 - Battle of Vézeronce, the Franks defeat the Burgundians Retrieved on 2007-10-07. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 3761 BC - The epoch (origin of the modern Hebrew calendar ( Proleptic Julian calendar)

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