Advanced Ceramics Production Using Automated Technological Process Control System

Abstract

Advanced ceramics for modern engineering applications can be regarded as a modern, high quality material using highly refined ingredients. The use of advanced ceramics as an engineering material has a number of properties inherent in metal-based materials. These properties place this new group of ceramics in the most attractive position not only in terms of performance, but also in terms of economic efficiency. These properties include high abrasion resistance, excellent heat resistance, chemical inertness, high processing speeds (as tools) and dimensional stability. The production of most ceramics, including both traditional and modern ceramics, consists of the following four main process steps: powder preparation, mixing, shaping, compaction and finishing. The existing known methods of mixing of the components in the process of ceramics production do not allow obtaining the advanced ceramics with a uniform density, since mills are used for mixing. Raw materials powder particles and various dopants or sintering aids added to ceramic powders distributions in ceramic material (usually single clay or one or more clays) during processing are critical in advanced ceramics production since an advanced ceramics should be ceramics with a homogeneous internal structure with high physicochemical properties. The paper presents a developed automated control system of technological process of the advanced ceramics production, which permits to automatically carry out all stages of the advanced ceramics production using the vibroturbulization process with optimal parameters in automatically mode for mixing all components, which contributes to the uniform distribution of the particle powder in ceramic material forming a homogeneous internal structure.