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Ceramic forming techniques


Ceramic forming techniques are ways of forming ceramics, which are used to make everyday tableware from teapots, to engineering ceramics such as computer parts. Pottery techniques include the potter's wheel, slipcasting, and many others.

Methods for forming powders of ceramic raw materials into complex shapes are desirable in many areas of technology. For example, such methods are required for producing advanced, high-temperature structural parts such as heat engine components, recuperators and the like from powders of ceramic raw materials. Typical parts produced with this production operation include impellers made from stainless steel, bronze, complex cutting tools, plastic mould tooling, and others. Typical materials used are: wood, metal, water, plaster, epoxy and STLs, silica, and zirconia.

This production operation is well known for providing tools with dimensional stability, surface quality, density and uniformity. For instance, on the slip casting process the cast part is of high concentration of raw materials with little additive, this improves uniformity. But also, the plaster mould draws water from the poured slip to compact and form the casting at the mould surface. This forms a dense cast.

There are many forming techniques to make ceramics, but one example is slipcasting. This is where slip, liquid clay, is poured into a plaster mould. The water in the slip is drawn out of the slip, leaving an inside layer of solid clay. When this is thick enough, the excess slip can be removed from the mould. When dry, the solid clay can then also be removed. The slip used in slip casting is often liquified with a substance that reduces the need for additional water to soften the slip; this prevents excessive shrinkage which occurs when a piece containing a lot of water dries.

Slip-casting methods provide superior surface quality, density and uniformity in casting high-purity ceramic raw materials over other ceramic casting techniques, such as hydraulic casting, since the cast part is a higher concentration of ceramic raw materials with little additives. A slip is a suspension of fine raw materials powder in a liquid such as water or alcohol with small amounts of secondary materials such as dispersants, surfactants and binders. Pottery slipcasting techniques employ a plaster block or flask mould. The plaster mould draws water from the poured slip to compact and form the casting at the mould surface. This forms a dense cast removing deleterious air gaps and minimizing shrinkage in the final sintering process.


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