Ceramics are a valuable and important engineering material in today’s world and have been with us for thousands of years. Ancient peoples knew of the useful properties of ceramics and utilized them in the fabrication of pottery, statuary and building materials. In the modern world, ceramics are all around us. Like the ancients we use them for pottery, statuary and building materials, but also for a host of other products such as electrical insulators, heat shields, medical applications and dental implants to name a few. Though new uses and formulations have been discovered for ceramics, two factors have remained constant. Those two factors are the necessity to thoroughly dry the ceramic before its final firing and the use of clay as an important raw material in ceramics.
A useful definition of ceramics is the use of inorganic nonmetallic materials, clay being and important example, as an essential component in the fabrication of solid articles. There are many uses for ceramics and many examples of ceramic products including pottery, porcelain, bricks, structural clays, abrasives, cements, glass, glass ceramics, non-metallic magnetic materials, ferroelectrics, and single crystal materials.
The uses for ceramics are many and continuously expanding, making ceramics an important engineering material. There are many types and formulations of ceramics, but they generally all have the same basic mechanical characteristics. Ceramics typically are brittle with little or no deformation before fracture. They have high shear strengths and therefore are not ductile. Also, high hardness and high compressive strength are characteristic of ceramics. There are various methods of processing ceramics, but the mode that this paper is concerned with is the process wherein ceramic powders are mixed with a binder or a liquid. One of the most often used binders is clay and one of the most often used liquids is water. The process is fairly simple. The clay and water are mixed with the various ceramic components needed for the desired characteristics required in the finished ceramic product. The mixture is then molded or formed to the requisite shape and then allowed to dry. The drying is needed to remove as much water as possible from the ceramic piece before it is fired. Firing is done at higher temperatures than drying and causes the binder and included ceramic powders to fuse and gain strength. The ceramic then can be glazed or otherwise finished. The drying procedure is vital, since if not all the water is removed, upon firing, the water may turn into steam, expand, explode and destroy or damage the ceramic.
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