Characterization techniques of ceramics

Ceramics, whether traditional or technical, are widely used materials, not only in everyday life but also in more "specialized" fields such as aeronautics, electronics, medicine...

As a result, the ceramics industry's need for characterization techniques has grown, to meet the requirements of both the designer (or elaborator) and the user.

The designer seeks to determine the composition, i.e. the constituent atoms of the ceramic, in order to know the sintering, melting and maximum use temperatures in condition. However, the properties of a ceramic material are governed not only by its chemical composition, but also by its crystalline structure. Indeed, two ceramics with an identical composition, but a different crystalline structure, can behave very differently when used. The microstructure (size and shape of the grains and crystals that make up the ceramic) is another element sought after by the manufacturer to control mechanical properties.

The user wishes to characterize the ceramic material under stresses close to the conditions of use. To achieve this, he will be interested in the behavior of the ceramic under thermal, mechanical, electrical and chemical stresses. These two approaches are not exclusive to ceramics, but are applicable to all categories of materials, including metals. However, compared to metals, ceramics generally exhibit high mechanical hardness, electrical and thermal insulating properties, and chemical inertness (resistance to corrosion, chemical attack, etc.). Consequently, although the characterization techniques for these two families of solids are generally the same, their implementation is often very different.

As we can see, there are many different approaches to characterizing ceramics. The aim of this article is not to provide an exhaustive description of the various solid characterization methods, but to present them in a way that will help the user or designer to choose one characterization method over another, based on the specific properties of ceramics.

The aim is to present the principle and operating procedures for each technique, without going into detail; each technique is usually the subject of one or more books. For a more in-depth look at the theoretical and practical aspects of each technique, readers are invited to consult the corresponding articles.