[volt-nuts] PCBs with ceramic substrates

Chuck Harris cfharris at erols.com
Sun Apr 9 22:08:22 EDT 2017


There are modern ceramics that are among the toughest things you
will ever see in your life.

A ceramic gun is entirely of ceramic.  There are automotive
engines made entirely of ceramic.  As are some turbines used
in turbochargers for engines.

One of the things that can make ceramic extremely tough is
to put it in a mold, and compress it to many tons per square
inch, while in the green state.  After that, it is already
tough.  Then fire it to sinter everything together.

Google is your friend.

Again, it isn't your mother's teapot.

-Chuck Harris

cheater00 cheater00 wrote:
> Hi Chuck,
> I can't talk about most of those applications but in the ones I know of the
> ceramics are used for their hardness (ie ability to withstand deformation).
> What we want is toughness which is a different thing (ability to withstand
> breaking). Compromising hardness and toughness is why in a knife you only
> harden the cutting edge, and you specifically watch out that the rest
> doesn't harden, or you even reverse the hardening process on that part.
> High hardness and low toughness is also why ceramic knives chip more easily
> than metal ones. I haven't seen fully ceramic gun parts, interesting idea.
> I know very little about gun parts. I wonder if it's just a layer over a
> metal. Brake linings will have the benefit of a tough backing which will
> enable load bearing. This is what you want from a pcb - toughness for load
> bearing, and minimal hardness for reduced fragility. I don't suppose lathe
> inserts will be made in the same way a pcb would be. If you know more
> please let me know, I'd love to hear more about it. And yeah, I like to
> break things when I can :)
> 
> On Sun, 9 Apr 2017 18:37 Chuck Harris, <cfharris at erols.com> wrote:
> 
>> Why exactly do you think ceramic is delicate?


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