Basic Research on Processing of Ceramics for Space Structures

Abstract

Materials for aerospace structures must be lightweight, rigid, and capable of withstanding wide temperature excursions. Composite ceramic materials can meet both these requirements and many more of importance to the aerospace industry. Present processing techniques, however, are unable to produce composite ceramic structures reliably and reproducibly because material composition and microstructure cannot yet be adequately controlled. Control is a key concept in ceramics processing. A relatively recent finding has been the strong interdependence of all steps in the ceramics production sequence (e.g., particle synthesis or preparation, dispersion chemistry and powder handling, particle packing, fabrication, and sintering). Ceramic pieces can be fabricated reliably and reproducibly only if every step is performed properly; mistakes cannot be corrected through subsequent processing. Keywords: Space objects, Microstructure.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 1984
Accession Number
ADA216089

Entities

People

  • Anne Bagley
  • Christine Sobon
  • H. K. Bowen
  • Hiromichi Okamura
  • Pierre E. Debely
  • Richard L. Pober
  • Ted Mcmahon
  • William Moffatt
  • Yasuo Oguri

Organizations

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aluminum Oxides
  • Ceramic Materials
  • Chemical Analysis
  • Chemical Synthesis
  • Chemistry
  • Composite Materials
  • Crystal Structure
  • Electron Microscopy
  • Materials
  • Materials Processing
  • Materials Science
  • Measurement
  • Mechanical Properties
  • Metal Oxides
  • Microscopy
  • Phase Transformations
  • Silicon Carbide

Readers

  • Computer Vision.
  • Nanocomposite Materials Science
  • Software Engineering

Technology Areas

  • Space