Ceramics for Engines

Abstract

With the availability of high quality silicon nitride components the characteristics of these silicon nitride components during application in vehicular engines and the interaction with the surrounding systems became the focus of interest. The relatively high component costs, the lack of suitable test methods to examine the quality of individual components for assuring the quality of standard production parts and, above all, the present gap in knowledge concerning the lifetime reliability of ceramic components have to be regarded as the main obstacles today preventing increased use of fine ceramics or silicon nitride in automotive engineering. This paper will illustrate in an abrigded form how research work is carried out at the Daimler-Benz Research Center to get reliable information on these questions, taking as an example some ceramic components which were under research in the past and some which are currently under evaluation, as for example silicon nitride valves.