(Describer) In an animation, streams of light collide to create a globe filled with water. Title: Science Nation.
(male)
Four, three, two, one,
(Describer) A orange glow turns clear under a Space Shuttle on a launchpad, and smoke billows out.
and liftoff!
(male narrator)
Watch a launch like this
and you wonder,
"How do they make
engine parts so durable
they can withstand
a fiery inferno?"
Those are no run-of-the-mill
nozzles on the rockets.
They're made
of high-performance ceramics.
(female)
When you're trying to push
materials to extreme limits,
(Describer) Holly Shulman:
most metals start to soften and
give out at high temperatures.
Ceramics are very stiff.
(Describer) Small pieces are combined in a factory.
(narrator)
A key to building denser,
stronger materials
that won't fail or fracture
under extreme conditions,
is the manufacture
of ultra-high temperature,
or UHT, ceramics.
(Describer) They're treated in a large cylinder.
(female)
It's defined as "over
1,800 degrees C in processing."
That's extremely hot.
You think in terms of red-hot,
as 1,000 degrees C.
(Describer) They're taken out and checked.
Good, excellent.
(narrator)
With support from the
National Science Foundation,
material scientist
Holly Shulman
and her team
at a company called Ceralink
are developing UHT ceramics
using a new method
that harnesses the power
of microwaves.
(Describer) A kitchen microwave shuts off.
(female)
Instead of the way
food heats,
which is based on water heating
within the food,
we can actually make that work
in ceramic materials
to heat them internally
and cause them to densify
very quickly
and with huge energy savings.
(Describer) At the factory, an operator pushes buttons.
(narrator)
At Ceralink, the machines they
use to make the UHT ceramics
still fire up
to high temperatures.
Rather than combining
the heat with high pressure
to push the atoms
in the material together
and make it super-hard and
strong, they use microwaves.
It's a process called
enhanced diffusion.
Instead of having to use
high pressures,
we are investigating
the use of microwaves
for enhanced diffusion.
Then it can be done
at atmospheric pressure.
(narrator)
The goal is to make
the industrial manufacture
of high-quality UHT ceramic
parts faster and cheaper.
Take this silicon
carbide filter
designed to strain
molten metal.
It gets extruded in an additive
manufacturing process
called robocast,
then fired in Ceralink's
UHT microwave assist furnace.
(female)
It's squeezed out like
toothpaste or Playdough,
and it builds up a part
in three dimensions.
The firing, by using our type
of technology, is much faster.
(narrator)
Faster, cost-effective methods
to bring ultra-high-temperature
ceramics to marketplace.
It's an idea
that's heating up.
(Describer) A globe turns by the title.
For Science Nation,
I'm Miles O'Brien.
