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Home > News > A hot spot
Robert Ritchie and Hrishikesh Bale

A hot spot

Berkeley Engineer Spring 2013
May 1, 2013
This article appeared in Berkeley Engineer magazine, Spring 2013
  • In this issue

    Features

    Critical making comes to campus

    Experiential ed

    Greening the factory floor

    Dean’s Word

    Upfront

    • Engineering benchmarks for cap-and-trade
    • Welcoming a new chancellor
    • RadMAP rollout
    • Mind the gap
    • EECS offers online master’s program
    • Introducing the Dreambox
    • Q+A: Oxford-bound
    • Comments

    Breakthroughs

    • To a fault
    • A hot spot
    • Mind readers
    • Everlasting clock
    • Streamlined

    Alumni notes

    • Chair man
    • Farewell

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Much like your standard earthenware coffee mug, today’s advanced ceramics are renowned for their ability to resist damage from heat. However, these materials can also be brittle and prone to cracking, limiting their applications. Hoping to optimize their usage and safety, researchers, led by materials science and engineering professor Robert Ritchie, have created the first facility where scientists can test ceramic composites at ultrahigh temperatures and examine them with a real-time CT scan. Their mechanical testing rig can subject these materials to temperatures up to 1,750 degrees Celsius, while allowing scientists to view microcracks and evaluate a material’s risk of structural or mechanical failure. Researchers anticipate this will lead to future advances in the technological innovation of ceramic composites to be used in jet engines and other applications.

Topics: Materials science, Faculty, Research
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