
Ceramics are composed of compounds of metals and non metals and may be crystalline or partly crystalline. They are characterized as brittle, hard, strong in compression, and weak in shearing, tension and impact. These materials are also very resistant to both corrosion and very high temperatures and can be designed to either insulate against or selected to conduct electricity. Ceramics have a wide range of applications most notably in industries that require materials to withstand large compressive forces or intense heat exposure for extended periods of time.
Glass is a non-crystalline solid material, and typically brittle. It is used for windows, bottles, electronics, and eyewear and would include soda-lime glass, borosilicate glass, acrylic glass, sugar glass, Muscovy-glass, and aluminium oxynitride. The term "glass" may also refer to amorphous solids and melts including plastics, resins. Those applications include flat glass, container glass, optoelectronics materials, laboratory equipment, glass-reinforced plastic, and glass fiber reinforced concrete reinforcement fibers. Testresources configures test machines with the special fixtures to meet your glass testing needs. All our mechanical test machines and accessories are configured and engineered depending on our customers' specifications.
Ceramics & Glass Testing:
Testing ceramics and glass is important to determine if they are suited for a specific applications. Typically this involves a series of tests to measure the material’s mechanical properties. These properties include the yield strength, ultimate strength, tensile strength, compressive strength, flexural strength, fracture strength, hardness, fracture resistance and creep rate. With the knowledge of these values the behavior that is expected from the ceramic during the application can be predicted and it can be shown if it will succeed or fail.
Common Ceramics & Glass Test Methods:
There are many different tests that can be performed upon ceramics but the most common and important are those that involve compression, tension, flexural, and fracture mechanics. Because of the way that ceramics and glass are constructed they generally posses vary high compressive strengths and will most often fail due to tensile, flexural or fracture forces; therefore it is very important to test these properties. Each property may also be tested using conventional methods, creep mechanics or cyclic (fatigue) methods.
Material Testing Specimens:
Depending on the method of testing a ceramic or glass test sample can come in several different forms. For compression testing a ceramic or glass sample is usually in the sample of a simple brick, cube or cylinder. Flexural and fracture testing require the sample to be smaller than compression testing but it is still rectangular in nature with the flexure sample generally as a thin rectangle and the sample for fracture ranging from a beam to a brick. A ceramic or glass sample for tensile testing presents interesting obstacles as they are very brittle in nature and prone to fracturing when loaded improperly. The sample is generally the same as other tensile samples with the exception of the ends which are usually formed as button headed to fit into specially designed grips to avoid any incidental failure.
Popular Ceramic Testing Applications
There are many different tests that can be performed upon ceramics but the most common and important are those that involve compression, tension, flexural, and fracture mechanics. Because of the way that ceramics are constructed they generally posses vary high compressive strengths and will most often fail due to tensile, flexural or fracture forces; therefore it is very important to test these properties. Each property may also be tested using conventional methods, creep mechanics or cyclic (fatigue) methods.