I was looking through the McMaster Carr catalog and came
across this material called  Toughened Zirconia Ceramic.
Five times the fracture toughness of alumina.
254,000 psi compressive strength.
90,000 psi flexural strength.
932 degrees F.

$27 a foot for .375" diameter rod. Enough for three seals.

If we could find somebody to diamond grind this stuff it
would be a major breakthrough in the cost of ceramic
apex seals. Just like our teflon encapsulated silicon O-rings.

If it worked.

Ianette gets $200 each.

Paul Lamar

Bill Freeman wrote:

 My bet is that the machining of this stuff is horrendous.
Hard, hard, hard.  Also you need pretty accurate dimensions.
You might luck out and find someone with the right
equipment that works cheap.

Bill

The AirCraft Rotary Engine NewsLetter.              Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site.
http://home.earthlink.net/~rotaryeng/            http://www.linux.org