Trends

/ Blog

Explore CMTEL’s trends blog featuring searchable and filterable posts.

All Trends >

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/ Channels

Explore external links to ceramic-based materials and design trends.

Core77’s Materials section serves a devoted global audience of industrial designers ranging from students through seasoned professionals.

Ceramic @ C77 >

New York based Material Connexion’s libraries and database provide global materials inspiration.

Ceramic @ MCX >

Netherlands based MaterialDistrict’s database, articles and events provide materials inspiration with European emphasis.

Ceramic @ MD >

UK based Stylus offers reports, webinars, workshops and events for businesses to forecast cross-industry trends and consumer shifts.

Trends @ ST >

Transmaterial is curated by Minnesota based Blaine Brownell, architect and former Fulbright scholar with a focus on emergent materials and applications.

Ceramic @ TM >

Material

/ Overview

Ceramics are the most durable of all materials… And it is their durability, particularly at high temperatures, that generates interest in them today. They are exceptionally hard (diamond—a ceramic—is the hardest of them all) and can tolerate higher temperatures than any metal.

Ceramics are crystalline (or partly crystalline) inorganic compounds; they include both traditional, pottery-based ceramics and the high performance technical ceramics. All are hard and brittle, have generally high melting points and low thermal expansion coefficients and most are good electrical insulators.

Traditional ceramics, based on clay, silica and feldspar, are soft and easily molded before they are fired; firing creates a glassy phase that binds the other components together to create brick, stoneware, porcelain and tile.

Technical ceramics consist of pure or nearly pure compounds, synthesized by chemical reactions; the commonest are alumina, silicon carbide, silicon nitride, boron carbide, boron nitride and tungsten carbide.

Ashby & Johnson – Materials and Design: The art and science of material selection in product design; Ceramics (pg 203).

Library

CMTEL’s materials library is organized by a numerical system to identify specific classes within a material family:
Ceramic is designated 200.00. To see the full taxonomy of polymer scroll to the “Taxonomy” section below. For a complete materials taxonomy visit the CMTEL Taxonomy page.

Types

Varying the composition of ceramic ingredients (quartz, feldspar and kaolin) produces different types. Ceramics are generally classified as Pottery or Technical.

Timeline

Ceramics date back earlier than 10,000 BC and served as vessels, artwork and building material. The development of refractory ceramics evolved furnace technology to help drive the Industrial Revolution and process metals at an industrial scale. The twentieth century yielded the first technical ceramics whose development continues to advance.

click on image to enlarge >

/ Taxonomy

Ceramic Taxonomy by Name

Pottery

Earthenware
Porcelain
Stoneware

High-Performance

Alumina
Boron Carbide
Silicon Carbide
Silicon Nitride
Tungsten Carbide
Zirconia

Further References >

Kula & Ternaux – Materiology: the creative industry’s guide to materials and technologies; Glass, Ceramics (pp 60-62).
Lefteri, Chris – Materials for design; Ceramics (pp 202-231).
Thompson, Rob – The materials sourcebook for design professionals; Mineral (pp 480-507).
Thompson, Rob – Manufacturing processes for design professionals; Ceramics (pp 488-490).

NIST – Structural Ceramics Database
NIST – Fracture Energy Data for Ceramics

Methods

/ Overview

To make traditional ceramic pieces either slip, paste, or powder/thermoplastic composites are prepared: slip is a liquid suspension; paste is obtained from enriched liquid paste; powder of a pre-fired ceramic is mixed with a thermoplastic.

Once cast, injected, pressed, extruded or thrown, etc., the pieces are then dried-in the open air or inside-then fired. This firing takes place in one or more stages. For earthenware, the first firing (between 1000°C and 1050°C) gives a piece known as ‘biscuit’ or ‘bisque’. This then may be decorated with glazes. The second firing (between 940°C and 980°C) makes the glaze coating vitrify and completes the piece’s manufacture.

Kula & Ternaux – Materiology: the creative industry’s guide to materials and technologies; Ceramics (pp 61-62).

Inputs
Process

Inputs

Made by firing and generally from, clay (left), quartz/silica and feldspar, traditional ceramics are porous materials which have vitreous/amorphous and crystalline phases. Clay’s main constituent is kaolin (middle), with a relatively large proportion of metallic oxides, impurities which affect the colour of the finished product. Feldspar plays the role of a fluxing material, cementing the kaolin and silica particles and reducing porosity.

Technical ceramics are synthetic materials (right, as powder inputs) mostly made of oxides, carbides, nitrides, brides, sulfides, titanates, zirconia, etc., according to the desired final properties.