Ceramics

Abstract

The word ceramic conjures up different images with different people. For many, the word means porcelain and pottery, while the engineer usually thinks of the newer industrial ceramics, namely sintered oxides, carbides, and nitrides. In this chapter we will give brief consideration to a wide range of crystalline inorganic materials, including not only the materials normally termed ceramics but also stone, cement, concrete, and bricks. Building stone and bricks are materials that have been used since earliest times for constructional purposes and, like ceramics generally, are usually hard and brittle materials that are comparatively strong in compression, but weak in tension.