The Art of Glaze

In the ceramic technology subject, glazes is one of components that drew my attention. The study of formulation, preparation and application of glazes is very interesting. So I thought to put some general ideas about glazes of traditional ceramic industry.

Glazes are very important to the traditional ceramic industry. It sometimes gives the vitreous properties to the body and sometimes, art to the body. In either case in enhances the cost of the product.

When the importance is considered, the appearance of a ceramic product is very important even the cost is elevated with the application of the glaze. Sometimes the product is decorated with a single color and in some cases it is decorated with a texture. Most of pottery are decorated with textured glazes, while some wall tiles and floor tiles are colored glazed.

Giving appearance to the product is one effect of the glaze. But there are some important technical factors which improve the quality of the product.
1. Vitreous
   Some products are used in wet conditions such as floor tiles and wall tiles for a bathroom. So it does not allow water to pass through the tile, which will get deformed (due to moisture absorption) and the lifetime of the tile will be reduced. Sometimes it will allow water to pass through the wall and make it appear on the other side of the wall. The vitreous (non-porous) glaze will prevent this from happening.

2. Strength
   The body along is a pressed and fired body which has a high strength. When the glaze is applied on the top of the fired body, it will also reinforce the body and elevate the strength of the product.

Glazes are very important in the traditional ceramic industry and so that the study of that is also important.

Glazes and Glaze Preparation

Glazes are the substances, which are generally used to cover the top part of the tiles (generally). If we consider wall tiles the top part, which we can see as a glossy layer is called the glaze. Actually glaze is a layer of glass and it can be defined as,

"A thin continuous layers of glass, fusion bonded to the ceramic body"

Glazes are usually prepared according to a formula, which is predetermined in accordance with the ceramic body.

Preparation
1. Raw materials are weighed according to the batch formula.
2. Grind the batch in a ball mill.
3. Adjust the density, viscosity and particle size distribution.
4. Finally sieve the batch before using.

Density, viscosity and particle size distribution are the main factors that govern the properties of the materials.

Shape Memory Alloys (SMA)

Shape memory alloys (SMA's) are metals, which exhibit two very unique properties, pseudo-elasticity, and the shape memory effect.

What is Pseudo-elasticity?
This is also called superelasticity. This is an elastic response in the materials in which, under mechanical stresses, it deforms to high strains (~10%) and when the stress is removed it gains the original shape.

What is Shape Memory Effect?
Shape-memory materials are stimuli-responsive materials. They have the capability of changing their shape upon application of an external stimulus. It is called the shape memory effect.

These materials are used for various engineering, high technology applications such as military, medical, safety and robotics.

- cheers

Advanced Ceramics

So many things have been changed with the new subjects. I am creating a new enthusiasm towards the field of ceramics, because of some attractive things I gather from studies. Advanced is one of the great field in which I would love to wander.

What are advanced ceramics?
We have dealt with lot of traditional ceramics. Even in our old houses, we can find number of traditional ceramic applications such as jugs, sources and cups, pots, etc...

With the development of new technologies including micro and nano technologies, the applications of ceramics became more advanced. Since, past few decades, they have been using for various applications.

Applications of advanced ceramics?
These are ceramics, which are used for engineering applications with high accuracy. These can be categorized into various areas according to the application.
1. Electroceramcis
* Capacitor dielectric
* Piezoelectric ceramics
* Magnetic ceramics
* Optical ceramics
* Conductive ceramics
* Electronic substrate and package ceramics
2. Advanced structural ceramics
* Nuclear ceramics
* Bioceramics
* Wear-resistant ceramics
* Automotive ceramics

There will be more details in near future on the blog

-cheers

Back After Some Time...

Hi,
Couldn't interact with the blog in past few days (almost a month) :-)
Hope to see you people around and in the new semester there are astonishing subjects that I do. Some of those are advanced ceramics, joining of materials and Characterization of materials. Learning serious things regarding materials engineering. I feel what a materials engineer can do and how they are going to change the world :-)

-cheers

Classification of Alloys

Alloys are very important materials, which give the ability to various industries to develop high strength, durable and attractive consumer products such as alloy wheels.

Alloys are classified into several groups. In the figure I have presented a narrowed classification.

The Dawn of a New Era

As the first technical post I thought to talk about a new technology, which will change the way of things will emerge.

Nanotechnology
It is the technology in which things are considered in nano scale. What is this nano-scale? It is the scale of 10-9.

Approaches
1. Top down
Here, the things will be created by breaking down the things into small portions like making a statue chipping off the unnecessary parts from the bulk.

2. Bottom up
It is the process of making things from atoms arranging them as the creator wants.

Here, the we can have limitless power of creating things using nanotechnology.