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Engineering ceramics are strong, chemically resistant, thermally robust and hard wearing materials used in aerospace, medical device, automotive and chemicals industries. 

LPD Lab Services has worked on a wide variety of ceramics like alumina, zirconia, silicon nitrides, titanium nitride, boron nitride, industrial diamond and silicon carbide through to glass, cement and concretes in the construction industry.  Typical engineering ceramic activities include:  

• SEM/EDX analysis of phases in sintered silicon carbide furnace heater elements.
• XPS and SEM/EDX of fracture surfaces of ceramics looking for inclusions, impurities and porosity for elimination or process improvement.
• SEM/EDX of titanium nitride and silicon nitride tool tip failure surfaces.
• Identification and analysis of the source of wear materials in water and oil pumps and type matching against potential sources like dusts and sealant materials using optical microscopy and SEM/EDX including alumina, sand and building materials.
• Ceramics contact angle and wetting properties are important for medical devices used in the body and in aggressive chemical handling.  Contact angle measurements permit a qualitative and quantitative appreciation of the interactions at each stage of the manufacturing process as wetting is critical for the quality of the final ceramic product. Much contact angle instrumentation development has taken place to address the specific requirements of this application field.
• Assessment of hard wearing coatings on metals in friction and wear applications.