Ceramic engineering is the science and technology of creating objects from inorganic, non-metallic materials. This is done either by the action of heat, or at lower temperatures using precipitation reactions from high purity chemical solutions. The term includes the purification of raw materials, the study and production of the chemical compounds concerned, their formation into components and the study of their structure, composition and properties.
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The products of technical ceramics include tiles used in the Space Shuttle program, gas burner nozzles, ballistic protection, nuclear fuel uranium oxide pellets, bio-medical implants,jet engine turbine blades, and missile nose cones.
Its products are often made from materials other than clay, chosen for their particular physical properties. These may be classified as follows:
- Oxides: silica, alumina, zirconia
- Non-oxides: carbides, borides, nitrides, silicides
- Composites: particulate or whisker reinforced matrices, combinations of oxides and non-oxides (e.g. polymers).
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. 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. View More
