Paper Example on Methods for Processing Ceramics and Glass

Introduction

There are various types of products that come out of ceramics and glass. The two are not obtained from their sources in a form which can be used directly for any function. However, several processes have to be performed on the ceramics and glass raw materials so that the end products have an appealing look, texture and better functionality generally. The various ways in which the ceramic and glass raw materials are worked on through various processes and shaped to come up with items of any kind are explained in the PowerPoint slides and provided here is the broad explanation of the same as well as a summary of what is drawn and written in that particular PowerPoint.

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Glasses and Ceramics have some general characteristics which are associated with them. These are just a few of the many characteristics known to be possessed by the two:

They both have very high-temperature strength which means that at all times, the two can be used even at temperatures that are very high and still give outstanding service. High hardness is another character of ceramics and glass and this is the fact that they cannot be bent or broken easily under any circumstances. However, they possess low electrical and thermal conductivity and therefore it is difficult for them to provide services or rather be used in processes that demand some electrical and thermal conductivity. They are always resistant to corrosion and tear and therefore cannot be affected by corrosion and tear agents and this is what actually makes them so durable.

Methods for Processing Ceramics

Ceramics, as stated above in this paper, cannot be used in the state of their raw materials and therefore have to go through a long process or combination of processing methods before they can be good for any material use. There are for methods in the processing of ceramics which are namely; raw material crushing, shaping of the ceramics, drying and lastly the finishing done on them to obtain the final products which are usable in their form to produce other products of ceramics.

Ceramics Shaping

The shaping and creation of ceramics parts are made of a number of processes which begin with slip casting, extrusion, dry and wet pressing, hot pressing, jiggering, isostatic pressing and lastly injection molding. All these processes despite a few limitations associated with them are able to work well to shape the raw materials of raw materials until a time when the raw materials can be converted into more useful forms or parts of the ceramics. Most of these processes of the shaping of ceramics tend to be very costly and actually what makes them costly are the tools or rather the equipment which they require to aid in successful completion of these processes.

The Process

To obtain the pure parts of ceramics, the raw materials are injected into the processing plant which has a number of phases through which the materials have to go through the process by process until a time when they are fully converted into the final product which can then be taken up for production of more of these. In the initial phase of the process, the materials put in the crushing milling are combined with several additives from wetting agents, binders, lubricants, plasticizers and deflocculent. The wetting agents are useful to improve mixing while the lubricants added are important to make sure that the friction in between the particles is reduced during the activity. There are other agents that control the foaming during the process and then the role of the plasticizers is to make sure that the ceramic parts become more plastic and this aids in the easy shaping of the parts.

What follows is the shaping of the raw materials into the desired shapes before they can move to the next phase in the series. In the shaping of ceramics, the first thing is the casting, followed by plastic forming and lastly what is referred to as pressing. The casting is the introduction of the materials into the system, plastic forming involves the making of the materials more plastic so that when the last action of pressing is arrived at, and they can be easily cut into the required shapes.

Finishing Operations

In the manufacture and or processing of ceramics, there are a number of finishing processes that are done on it when the material has passed through all the other necessary phases. This is now the final phase which it has to go through before it can become what is desired in terms of outlook and all the other features it may need to have as the final product. The final things that are done on the already worked on ceramics include grinding, lapping and honing, ultrasonic machining, drilling and laser beam machining. All these things done on the ceramics are intended to make the end product after processing better and better. For example, the grinding is meant to breakdown the ceramics into finer particles which are easy to work with unlike the initial parts of the ceramics.

After the long process through which the ceramics go through in the manufacturing plants, there is what it comes out with as the very final product. It should be noted that after the processing and shaping of the raw materials into the best forms, these raw materials are used in the making of other more useful products which are useful in the present life. Some of the most common final products which are obtained from the raw materials of ceramics are; glass fibers, rods, and tubes, flat sheets. Moreover, there are other discrete products that come from the same which include things like eyeglasses, bottles, and vases. All the above-listed products which are obtained from ceramics have some special methods and procedures in which they are produced.

Glass

Turning to glass now, it is also a very important commodity which is made use of in the manufacture of quite a number of products which people all over the world use. However, the initial form or state in which the glass is obtained and in this case as a raw material cannot be used to do anything. Many things have to be done on it from the word go until a time when it comes to a form usable in the manufacturing industry. These are discussed below:

Glass Forming and Shaping

All the products which are made from glass from the likes of laminated glass, glass fibers, rods and tubing to flat sheets have got their own methods in which they are processed. Each and every particular method has its application on one of the manufacturing of the product and cannot be applied to come up with the other. To start with are the flat sheets as products of glass;

Flat Sheets

There are two methods which are used in the making of flat sheets from the glass. These two are the methods of drawing process and the float method. In the float method, the glass is introduced into the furnace of the manufacturing plant then it goes through the molten tin of the float bath where the atmosphere is controlled in terms of temperatures and so on. The glass which has been compressed and worked on in the molten tin passes through another furnace stretched and through this it enters the last part of the plant. Here there is a lehr which has got rollers inside it. The work of these rollers is to roll the flat sheets of glass which have been manufactured before they can get out of the plant. This is one of the simplest and less costly methods of producing flat sheets from the glass.

The other method that is applied in the manufacture of flat sheets from the glass is the drawing process where the molten glass is introduced into the plant, passes through a cooling phase where it is cooled with water then it is taken through a forming process and made into the desired shapes. After this, it is turned, stretched well and taken out of the plant as flat sheets which are ready for use for any applicable purpose. Some plants have rollers with them which role up the flat sheets after manufacturing.

Rods and Tubing

Many of the rods and tubes which are available today are products of glass. They are obtained from molten glass in a different way from the other objects made from the same glass. A simple plant is used to come up with tubes and rods from the molten glass where the air is continuously blown through a mandrel so that the tube does not collapse. The mandrel is found in the space where molten glass has been put and this blowing gets out the molten glass out with air space within its sides. It gets out as a tube with a vacuum inside it and there are rollers at the end to roll the tubes.

Ordinary bottles of glass are manufactured by introducing molten glass or gob into a blank mold, a blowdown of air in the mold is done then a blowback follows. The blank mold is reversed after the blowback and a parison that hangs on the ring of the neck is reheated. The heated parison is put in a blow mold then air blown to expand it to a bottle shape. It is allowed to cool and the formed bottle gotten out by the use of tongs.

There is a basic way of getting items out of glass mold where the molten glass is put in an empty mold, and then the loaded mold is pressed so that a finished part of the glass is obtained. This is the simplest of all and the outcome depends on the shape of the pressing material. Centrifugal casting can also be used to make products out of glass and some of the objects made through this method are television tube funnels and some big lenses used in telescopes.

Ways of Strengthening Glass

One of the most popular methods that are used in the strengthening of glass in by thermal tempering. It works in that there is rapid cooling of hot glass surfaces by an air blast. There is the development of residual stresses on the surfaces after the cooling. The tempered glass then breaks into small particles when broken and this happens as a result of the high energy amount present in the residual stresses stored.

The above ways are the ways in which glass and ceramics are manufactured into more useful products that are important in present-day life. The two are so much important since they manufacture many of the objects which are used in industries, schools, hospitals, and such other relevant environments.

Works Cited

[1]"Ceramics - Forming Processes", Science.jrank.org, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://science.jrank.org/pages/1349/Ceramics-Forming-processes.html. [Accessed: 29- Mar- 2019]

[2]"Surface Decoration: Finishing Techniques - Ceramic Arts Network", Ceramic Arts Network, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://ceramicartsnetwork.org/shop/surface-decoration-finishing-techniques/. [Accessed: 29- Mar- 2019]

[3]"Glass Strengthening Methods : Abrisa Technologies", Abrisatechnologies.com, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://abrisatechnologies.com/2014/11/glass-strengthening-methods/. [Accessed: 29- Mar- 2019]

[4]"Processing of Powder Metals, Ceramics, Glass & Superconductors - ppt video online download", Slideplayer.com, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://slideplayer.com/slide/265722/. [Accessed: 29- Mar- 2019]

[5] "CeramicsGlassesSuperconductors-HO.pdf 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.engr.mun.ca/~adfisher/3941/Ch18_CeramicsGlassesSuperconductors-HO.pdf. [Accessed: 29- Mar- 2019]