Ceramic Engineering

Ceramic Engineering deals with composition and behavior of materials. The strength of materials under different kind of load conditions is studied. New materials can be produced as per requirement by combining different materials & their properties.

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 precipation 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.

The multibillion-dollar ceramic industry converts processed materials and raw materials taken directly from the earth (clay, sand etc.) into such useful products as spark plugs, glass, electronic components, nuclear materials, abrasives, rocket components and even tableware. High temperature processing is the key to ceramic engineering and the products are always inorganic, nonmetallic solids. From a single chemical source, ceramic engineers make useful materials in many forms. Carbon as diamond is used as an abrasive for grinding; carbon in the form of graphite is used for lubrication, as glass for crucibles, and as fiber for cloth. Career Opportunities are in abundance in this field in various areas, like in building space shuttles, producing ceramics teethes, bones and joints, making ultra fast computer systems, in fiber optic cables etc.

Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, with long-range order on a molecular scale. Glass ceramics may have an amorphous or glassy structure, with limited or short-range molecular order. They are either formed from a molten mass that solidifies on cooling, formed and matured by the action of heat, or chemically synthesized at low temperatures using the solution/precipitation techique known commonly as Sol-gel.