What is the importance of ceramics in today's world?

Answer 1

Importance of ceramics in today's world?= Applications for advanced ceramics have received major media attention in recent years, particularly for use as parts in a future ceramic heat engine. However, corrosion resistance, chemical inertness, thermal shock resistance, and other properties that materials scientists and engineers can design into ceramic materials make both traditional and advanced ceramics highly attractive in a large number of applications. The combination of properties mentioned above make ceramics good candidates for wear-resistance applications. Electrical properties place ceramics in great demand as solid electrolytes in experimental batteries and fuel cells. Other uses include automotive sensors, packaging for integrated circuits, electronic/optical devices, fiber optics, microchips, and magnetic heads. In the marriage of the computer and communications technologies, ceramics play a major role. The chemical inertness of ceramics is finding many uses in the medical field, where contact with body fluids is less of a problem than with most other materials. Finally, ceramics play a big role in the machine-tool industry. Their thermal and mechanical stability allows them to retain their smooth, accurate cutting surfaces longer than metals do. Coated cutting tools and inserts, some with as many as 12 extremely thin coatings, each designed to serve a special function, can run productively at faster cutting speeds and at faster feed rates than can any metal-alloy tool in the machining of hard steels, superalloys, and ceramics. What is remarkable about these multicoated carbide inserts is the fact that, 3 with slightly over a dozen thin ceramic layers, the total thickness of the coatings is only 10 to 12 mm. =