Explanation of Ceramics

Question

Give a brief explanation of Ceramics.

Answer 1

The word ceramic is originated from the Greek word keramikos, ‘having to do with pottery’. The term covers inorganic non-metallic materials whose formation is because of the action of heat. Up till the 1950s or so, the most imperative of these were the traditional clays, made into pottery, tiles, bricks and the like, with cements and glass.

Historically, ceramic products have been hard, porous, and brittle. Technical Ceramics can also be classified into three distinct material categories:

Oxides: Zirconia, Alumina

Non-oxides: Borides, Carbides, silicides, nitrides

Composites: Particulate reinforced combinations of the non-oxides and oxides.

Ceramic materials can be amorphous or crystalline. They tend to fracture before any plastic deformation happens, which results in poor toughness in these kinds of materials. Additionally, since these materials tend to be porous, the pores and other microscopic imperfections act as stress concentrators, lessen the toughness further, and lessen the tensile strength. These combine to provide catastrophic failures, as opposed to the normally much more gentle failure modes of the metals.