Quality Assurance in Manufacturing High-Performance Ceramics

Abstract

Quality assurance of ceramic components during various processing stages is an important ingredient in assuring the reliability in engineering applications. The current advances which are made in advanced nondestructive evaluation of finished components have been very useful. However, the importance of in-process quality control in closed-loop iterative process and product development has to be understood in terms of materials science aspects. This paper addresses some of the tools in nondestructive evaluation which are available in ceramic manufacture and gives illustrations of successful implementation of those techniques in two categories of ceramic applications, current and advanced. Further research and development needs in the NDE are also briefly addressed.