Thursday 28 January 2016

Common Properties & Applications of Low Thermal Expansion Materials

Thermal expansion is the tendency of a material to change in shape, volume and area in response to the change in temperature. Fine ceramic products used to have low coefficients of thermal values in respect to changes in temperature, which depends on the bond between the atoms of the materials.

Ceramic is a known low thermal expansion material and poses excellent thermal, mechanical, chemical and electrical properties. Some common machinable ceramics are Macor, Macerite, Photoveel and more. Macor has high electrical resistivity, high dielectric strength and can withstand temperature upto 1000 degree Celsius. It can easily be machined into complicated shapes and precision parts using different traditional machining tools.

Non-machinable ceramics such as high purity Alumina, Zirconia, Aluminium Nitride, Silicon Carbide, Silicon Nitride, Boron Nitride, and more also used in various applications. It requires best ceramic machining tools and equipment such as 3 and 5 axis machining centers as well as precision measuring instruments in order to deliver quick results without compromising on the quality part.

For machining Ceramics, companies generally employ diamond tools, machining centers and jigs which are especially designed and produced to perform shaping, carving, embossing, grooving, hole drilling and tapping effectively. Many companies also use slicing machines to cut low thermal expansion materials effectively as it is not only affordable but also reduce wastage of material during the process.

Machining ceramics require clean rooms equipped with vacuum constant temperature drying machine, hot air drying machine, de-airing sealer and 5 tanks deionized water ultrasonic cleaning machine to meet requirements of the semi-conductor industry.