Materials Science and Engineering

Ceramics and Composite Materials

The primeval ceramics made by humans were pottery objects, including 27,000-year-old figurines, made from clay, either by itself or blended with other materials like silica, hardened, sintered, in fire. Later ceramics were glazed and fired to produce smooth, coloured surfaces, decreasing porosity through the use of glassy, amorphous ceramic coatings on top of the crystalline ceramic substrates. Ceramics currently include domestic, industrial and building products, as well as a broad range of ceramic art. In the 20th century, new ceramic materials were developed for use in advanced ceramic engineering, such as in semiconductors. Polymers are investigated in the fields of biophysics and macromolecular science, and polymer science (which encompass polymer chemistry and polymer physics). Historically, products arising from the linkage of repeating units by covalent chemical bonds have been the primary focus of polymer science; emerging important areas of the science currently focus on non-covalent links. Composite materials are generally used for buildings, bridges and structures like boat hulls, swimming pool panels, race car bodies, shower stalls, bathtubs, storage tanks, imitation granite and cultured marble sinks and counter tops. The most advanced examples perform routinely on spacecraft in demanding environments.