Early 19th century was the time when the driving force for the researches on advanced materials was largely been concentrated on the defence application and aerospace industry (Noble 2017). However, during the late 1960s the trend started to swing towards the automotive industry owing to the fact that application oriented parameters of the aerospace and defence industry were limited (Jani et al. 2014). Automotive industry on the other hand is the necessary good for civilian application and highly technologically advanced yet a low cost machine that withstand against any climatic situation unlike the aerospace industry outcome. Utility gained through automobiles are at par with the human desire and the advantage of using automobiles has given rise in research of advanced materials for the automotive industry. Advanced materials play a crucial role in fabrication and design of various automotive components that has given stimuli towards the research of new materials of automobiles leading to a steady growth of the industry (Sapuan and Mansor 2014). Main goal of finding new material for the automotive industry is to enhance the fuel efficiency of the vehicles through reduced weight and better agronomics and design (Aydin et al. 2015). Besides this, advanced materials for the automotive industry aid the environment to have better sustainability, through reduction in carbon footprint and reduction in usage of fossil fuel. Material chemistry plays a crucial role in designing advanced materials for the automotive industry and the magic begun to appear, once the automobile manufacturers stated utilizing the ceramics in their products (Muthu 2014). This written report is focused to discuss the importance of Ceramics in the automotive industry and portray how it has changed the manufacturing process. Besides this, the report will discuss common method of manufacturing of automobiles and the role of ceramics in these processes. To conclude the report will provide scope of future usage of ceramics in automobile industries and a summarized overview of this report.
During the 1970s, there have been some outstanding researches in the automotive industry that has leaded it to become where it is now. One of the main driving forces for the recent growth and better sustainability of the automotive industry has been achieved by the introduction of ceramics in the automotive industry (Ali et al. 2015). Ceramics are considered and the enabling factor for advanced technologies likes telecommunication, electronics, optical systems, catalysts, heat engines. However, when it comes to the most useful involvement of the ceramics, then automotive industry is the place, where it has been used since decades. Researches regarding ceramics for automotive industry began back in 1970s and since then it have been cannon balling the growth of automobile industry largely (Ahmad et al. 2015). Depending upon the advantages of the ceramics, automobile industry has faced various changes in various fields. Ranging from designing to manufacturing vehicles have become easy and using the significant tensile stress, hardness, and heat resisting capabilities of ceramics automobiles are now much more stronger, agile, durable and technologically advanced.
|
Application |
Payoff |
|
Diesel light duty vehicle |
10-15% reduction in diesel consumption |
|
Diesel heavy duty vehicle |
22% reduction in diesel consumption |
|
Gas turbine light duty vehicle |
27% reduction in fuel consumption |
Table 1: Benefit of ceramics in automotive industry
Source: (Sathyamoorthi, Prabhakaran and Abraar 2016)
Using ceramics in automotive industry is great in true sense and its potential payoffs to the society are large. As showcased in the table 1, utilization of ceramics can effectively reduce the fuel consumption leading to a better environmental and economical sustainability. According to the studies of Sathyamoorthi, Prabhakaran and Abraar (2016) diesel consumption can be reduced by $5 billion in US alone if ceramics is used in the automotive industry. Well, there has been various benefits of using ceramics; not only in automotive industry, besides it can be used in aerospace, military purpose, for cutting tools and etc. However, to make this report comprehensive, it would be necessary to study the background of ceramics and how the world was before it was discovered.
According to the soil science, surface of earth is mostly build of the ceramic materials, which are present as the fragmented rock or solid rock (Bergstrom 2017). Ceramic is being used by the early human species in their natural forms since the beginning of civilisation, however during the 20th century; scientists successfully synthesize it using chemical methods. It can be considered as a remarkable achievement of the modern engineering, which is present everywhere (Emami et al. 2014). One of the greatest blessings of modern ceramic engineering is directed towards the automotive industry, which has accepted this composite material wholeheartedly. Since 1949, usage of ceramic began in automotive industry through spark plugs. According to the studies, prior to introduction of ceramics in automotive industry, US workers, during 1920s used to make only 60,000 spark plugs per year (Rosner 2016). The scenario changed drastically over the time with introduction of ceramics and the figure of spark plug production turned out to be four times compared to the pre ceramic situation. If the present scenario of spark plug production is considered, then the figure is staggering high compared to the scenario of 1920. With the help of modern ceramics, workers around the world approximately produce more than 3 million spark plugs each day (Wang et al. 2017). Besides this, quality of the spark plus has also been uplifted greatly by using the modern ceramics. Now they are more carrion resistive, have great hardness, high resistance to temperature making the spark plugs withstand any climatic and usage situation.
Coming to the next usage of ceramic, the report focuses on the bearings, which are another essential component for the automotive industry. Without bearings, automotive parts will no longer be moveable and the whole system may come to a haul. High performance ceramic bearings, specifically M-50 rule the automotive industry, which gained its popularity through usage of ceramics (Ascheri et al. 2014). The reason behind such huge popularity of this specific bearing in the automotive industry is its low friction coefficient. With lower friction this bearings performs smoothly for a prolonged time without any tantrums making it the best bearing. Next outstanding gift of ceramics towards the automotive industry is sensor of various types. Ranging from air bag sensors to oxygen sensors, modern ceramics has always acted as the boon toward the automotive industry. Most of the ceramics of this century is made out of silicon nitride, silicon carbide, alumina, zirconia. Silicon nitride has given automotive industry an upper hand to make composite glass panels, which are much tougher and heat resistant, compared to the normal glass panels (Zheng et al. 2015). Silicon carbide has aided the automotive industry to make sophisticated turbine components that can withstand against high temperature and high pressure, compared to the engines made out of iron. Alumina is being in used to make spark plugs for the automotive industry and when it comes to zirconia, and then it is being used in the sensors of the vehicles. For instance, zirconia aids the automotive industry to make oxygen sensor, pressure sensor, airbag sensors, which were being produced in earlier days with the help of silicon (Pauzi et al. 2016). With the usage of ceramic in the automotive industry, performance of the vehicles can be enhanced greatly.
One of the important reasons to perform extensive researches on the ceramics was its capability to reduce environmental hazards produced by the automobiles. Besides this, it provides automobile to have a larger life cycle and ability to withstand adverse driving and natural condition (La Rosa and Cicala 2015). With better sensors and better equipments made with the ceramics, automobiles now produce reduce carbon wastage that not only aids the environment to keep healthy, moreover makes the world a sustainable place for future generation.
Over the last decade, ceramic has been used in automotive industry largely and it is now common to use it in automotives to make them technologically updated. It has great physical, electrical and thermal properties and most importantly cheaper than other means of producing automotive parts. With rise in demand of innovative design from the customer’s end, and government policies regarding safety of automobiles as well as environment, ceramic usage growth have rose largely (Yan 2015). Owing to the superiority of ceramics, ranging from sensors to seals, many automotive parts are being manufactured with the help of ceramics, which has revolutionized the automotive market. Most common usage of ceramics in automotive industry has been mentioned below:
Ceramic is one of the ideal metals for sensors owing to its property and cost advantages over other materials. It is robust in built quality, has no moving parts and customers can reliable on it because it has average life cycle of 50 years. These sensors are installed below to the interior of the automobiles and these sensors are exposed to the extreme natural conditions. Ceramics being a highly heat resistive and technologically updated, these are ideal solution for the sensors. A list of sensors are being used with the help of ceramics; for instance, it is being used in alarm systems, parking aids, engine knock, wheel balancing, ignition system and ABS systems (Blank, Eksperiandova and Belikob 2016). Prior to the introduction of ceramics in automotive industry, these sensors were made out of silicon; however, these were not suitable for long usage. They have less amount of heat resistance and lifecycle was low compared to their silicon counterparts. Due to lack of the synthetic ceramic materials and high cost of researching and development, producers were need to compromise in production of the sensors.
Ultrasonic level sensors are one of the most important parts of any automotives because it takes care the fuel tank of vehicle. With the help of Ship in a Bottle technology, ceramics is used to create blow moulded tank that encompasses fuel level sensors, fuel pumps and various other component of the fuel tanks. Using ceramics scope of evaporation emission is reduced largely and corrosive resistance nature of this material helps the fuel tank to have a better lifecycle. Traditional gauge of the fuel tanks possess less accuracy, greater evaporation scope and lowered lifecycle (Kesharaju et al. 2014). Thus, with advanced research, researches have come to synthetic ceramics that has given fuel tanks efficiency, higher longevity and great amount of cost effectiveness compared to the traditional materials for fuel tank level sensors.
Ceramics is used in maintaining the safety of the automotives by giving the producers a scope to develop monitoring system like Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS). This sensor aids the drivers to look into the tyre condition and take safety measure in case of any deflation. According to the studies of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, using ceramics in TPMS, road accidents has been reduce substantially and passengers have faced 56% reduced tyre punctures (Webster and Eren 2017).
Comfort is essential for every automobile and with the help of ceramics; comfort system has become highly agile, flexible and cost effective. Ceramics with the use of carbon fibre, comfort system has now 20-30% higher deflection and thus flexibility has become greater, compared to the traditional leathers (Irshad et al. 2017). This has reduced the weight of the comfort systems that has provided manufacturers scope to introduce intricate product with reduced cost.
Seals and valves are the essential components of automobiles. These things aid the engine of automobiles to remain cool and perform efficiently. Previously these things were made with the help of metals and rubbers, which has lower lifecycle, less amount of mechanical strengths and high cost. Using the zirconia and alumina, ceramics valves and seals of automobiles has better heat resistance, better life cycle, extreme hardness and enhanced corrosive resistance. Now, ceramics has raised the lifecycle of seal and valves by 250 times and pressure resistance capability by 20 times. Cost of the ceramic seals and valves has been reduced by the 20-30% making it the best option to be utilized in automotive industry (Cook 2017).
Conclusion:
The report has discussed ceramics in automotive industry and besides this, the report has tried to discuss, why there is a rise in usage of these materials in the industry. The report has found that it has various benefits compared to traditional materials, which were used until 2000 and it is the main reason of using it in automotive industry. According to the analysis in this report, benefits of using ceramics are mentioned below:
Besides these advantages, report has found that automotive industry use ceramics owing to their huge flexibility, agility and ability to give automotive industry a technological edge over aerospace mechanics. The human is using ceramics since the initial days of civilization; however, it was used in their natural form, which was fragile in nature and not up to the mark to compete with the metals. The report argues that, modern engineering has used the chemical engineering to process ceramics synthetically, which is strong like diamond, highly heat resistant in nature and corrosion free. These features make the synthetic ceramics the best option for the automotive industry.
Ceramics is used in various industries ranging from imaging industry to the medical industry. However, ceramics is used mostly in the automotive industry followed by the aerospace industry and military industry. Automobiles are composed of 70% ceramics that makes it a industry that uses highest amount of these materials in production line (McDermott et al. 2017). Since 1970s, ceramics has been started to use in the automotive industry and with rise in researches, new advanced ceramic tools have came into existence and the usage of ceramics started to grow exorbitantly. From smallest sensors and valves to largest part, windshield is now made out of ceramics. This portrays how beneficial ceramic is for the automotive industry and how ceramic has changed the automotive industry. Considering the recent tendency in rise in usage of ceramics future trend of ceramics is highly advantageous. Automotive industry, which now uses sensors, valves, engine blocks made out of ceramics is aiming to make improved sensors, thermal charges, colour coating and electrical components with the help of ceramics. Moreover, industry is aimed to make ceramic fuel cells, photovoltaic cells, batteries, fibre optics for transmission energy using the ceramics. It will aid the automakers to bring in such automobiles that will help to reduce the fuel consumption, carbon emission, weight of the cars and enhance the agility, flexibility and lifecycle of the vehicles. According to the Ceramics Expo, automotive industry is aimed to produce advanced ceramic glass for the cars, adhesive for the vehicles and bio glass materials with the help of ceramics (Homa 2016). Moreover, recent researches has taken place regarding the ceramic fuel and engine components, which are meant to produce light weight parts for the vehicles leading to reduced curb weight. In addition to this, Ceramics Expo argues that, complexity in production line can be reduced largely, giving a boost in the automotive industry to make the production issue simplified (Yang 2014). They argue that it will enhance the supply chain and make the vehicles more corrosion resistance. Well, considering this aim and development path of ceramics, it can be stated that future trend of ceramics is going to alter the present scenario of automotive industry and it will bring in technological advancement as well.
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