Type of ceramic

         Ceramics are classified as inorganic and nonmetallic materials that are essential to our daily lifestyle.  Ceramic and materials engineers are the people who design the processes in which these products can be made, create new types of ceramic products, and find different uses for ceramic products in everyday life.

• Structural, including bricks, pipes, floor and roof tiles
• Refractories, such as kiln linings, gas fire radiant, steel and glass making crucibles
• White wares, including tableware, cookware, wall tiles, pottery products and sanitary ware

Ceramics can be found in products like watches (quartz tuning forks-the time keeping devices in watches), snow skies (piezoelectric-ceramics that stress when a voltage is applied to them), automobiles (spark plugs and ceramic engine parts found in race cars), and phone lines.  They can also be found on space shuttles, appliances, and airplanes .  Depending on their method of formation, ceramics can be dense or lightweight.  

Typically, they will demonstrate excellent strength and hardness properties; however, they are often brittle in nature.  Ceramics can also be formed to serve as electrically conductive materials, objects allowing electricity to pass through their mass, or insulators, materials preventing the flow of electricity.  Some ceramics, like superconductors, also display magnetic properties.

Ceramics are generally made by taking mixtures of clay, earthen elements, powders, and water and shaping them into desired forms.  Once the ceramic has been shaped, it is fired in a high temperature oven known as a kiln.  Often, ceramics are covered in decorative, waterproof, paint-like substances known as glazes.

Definition of ceramic

     A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous. Because most common ceramics are crystalline, the definition of ceramic is often restricted to inorganic crystalline materials, as opposed to the noncrystalline glasses.

     The earliest ceramics were pottery objects or 27,000 year old figurines made from clay, either by itself or mixed with other materials, hardened in fire. Later ceramics were glazed and fired to create a colored, smooth surface. Ceramics now include domestic, industrial and building products and art objects. In the 20th century, new ceramic materials were developed for use in advanced ceramic engineering; for example, in semiconductors.

     The word "ceramic" comes from the Greek word κεραμικός (keramikos), "of pottery" or "for pottery", from κέραμος (keramos), "potter's clay, tile, pottery".The earliest mention of the root "ceram-" is the Mycenaean Greek ke-ra-me-we, "workers of ceramics", written inLinear b syllabic script."Ceramic" may be used as an adjective describing a material, product or process; or as a singular noun, or, more commonly, as a plural noun, "ceramics".

                                                                                                                                                                                      From Wikipedia