New NDE Methods for Quality Assessment of Advanced Ceramic Materials and Systems

Abstract

<p>Advanced ceramic materials offer enormous potential for innovations in the fields of efficient energy conversion and storage, propulsion systems, smart structures, sensor technology as well as environmental technology. The joint application of structural and functional ceramic technology allows for unique combination of electronic, ionic (electrochemical) and mechanical properties enabling the development of new, highly integrated systems in the above mentioned fields. However, due to the specific brittle failure mechanism of ceramic materials (Griffith behavior) the production of ceramic components requires new approaches for non destructive in-line testing. For this, we employ a broad variation of NDE methods such as x-ray, acoustic and optical techniques like OCT, laser speckle photometry and optical markers. We also apply new electromagnetic techniques such as radio frequency eddy current methods allowing for inspection of low conducting ceramic materials. The direct integration of NDE with ceramic manufacturing processes becomes even more important for new ceramic shaping technologies such as additive manufacturing. Therefore, a special focus is set on in-line NDE methods with additive manufacturing for ceramic components.</p>