"A NOVEL METHOD FOR FABRICATING TEXTURED CERAMICS"

Inventors: E. Suvaci,, G. L. Messing

PSU Inv. Disc. No. 98-1927

Issued U.S. Patent No. 6,251,335

Ceramics are essential components of many types of customized products. Texturing ceramics provides a method for improving a ceramic component's anisotropic characteristics in their electronic and structural properties. The current methods for producing textured ceramics, however, use colloidal-based, high temperature processes or processes that utilize expensive polymers. The ceramic product that is manufactured by these processes is also limited by its texture characteristics.

Material science researchers at Penn State University have discovered a novel method for fabricating dense, textured oxide ceramics that circumvents previous limitations. This process could lower the production costs of highly textured ceramics as well as benefit ceramic manufacturing specialists by producing a product that is three times tougher than products manufactured using conventional means from more costly starting materials. The process can also produce a highly textured product that can have multifaceted hardness. This process is ideal for creating an abrasive ceramic coating up to three centimeters thick on many mechanical devices. The new method utilizes a dry forming, templated, grain growth process that produces a highly textured product without the binder burnout or environmentally hazardous byproducts of conventional processes.