Precision ceramic materials, as an important component of new materials, are widely used in high-tech fields such as communication, electronics, aviation, aerospace, and military, especially in the field of information and communication technology. Electronic technology cannot do without magnetic ceramics, high-speed hard disk systems cannot do without ceramic bearings, and the launch of rockets and missiles also cannot do without ceramic components. Only ceramic materials can meet the requirements for materials with high temperature strength and good oxidation performance. Therefore, the prominent feature of ceramic materials is their exceptional hardness and brittleness.

    Metallographic inspection is a commonly used method for the research and production quality control of ceramic materials, but the difficulty in preparing metallographic samples of ceramics lies in the easy occurrence of cracks and grain breakage. QMAXIS provides a metallographic sample preparation plan for ceramic materials for your reference.

    The specific preparation steps for ceramic material samples are as follows:

    Cutting: QMAXIS metallographic equipment Metlab grinding wheel cutting machine, with diamond blades selected for cutting metal binders for ceramic materials

    Inlay: Cold inlay, using QMAXIS metallographic consumables for inlay materials

    Mechanical sample preparation: Metpol-A

    Attention: Due to the fact that ceramic materials are prone to detachment during sample preparation, which can create false images of pores under a microscope, using metal bonded diamond grinding discs and hard polishing cloths during the entire preparation process is an effective method to avoid detachment, and this should be noted. Due to its high hardness, diamond grinding and polishing media are used throughout the entire process. In addition, the loading force is relatively large and manual preparation is difficult to achieve. Usually, ceramic materials are mechanically prepared using automatic grinding and polishing.

    The above four step preparation method is applicable to general ceramic materials. Due to the wide variety of ceramic materials and the differences in their composition and structure determined by their different uses, the preparation of metallographic samples may vary slightly. If you need detailed information or have any difficult questions that require the support of QMAXIS application engineers, please feel free to contact us. You are also welcome to personally experience QMAXIS metallographic equipment and QMAXIS metallographic consumables in QMAXIS's laboratory.