This volume contains the proceedings of the 2nd European Symposium on Engineering Ceramics held in London, 23-24 November 1987. The meeting was attended by almost 200 scientists and engineers, primarily drawn from industry, and the Sessions were chaired by Mr Eric Briscoe, past President of the Institute of Ceramics. Very effective symposium organisation was provided by IBC Technical Services Ltd. The engineering ceramics are a class of materials which has over some 50 years found well-established applications based on the materials' chemical stability and wear resistance. The last 20 years have seen intensified efforts to extend applications for these materials into areas traditionally occupied by metals, but in which the typical metallic weaknesses of wear, and of high temperature creep and oxidation, are now creating significant problems. These efforts have, however, in many cases been undermined on the one hand by the inherent ceramic weaknesses of brittleness and flaw sensitivity, and on the other by an inadequate understanding, and control, of the basic ceramic fabrication processes required for the low-cost mass production of relatively complex components. The positive results of the efforts of the last 20 years have been the development of a large new group of ceramic materials believed to possess intrinsic mechanical property advantages, of which the transformation toughened zirconias, and the ceramic matrix composites are good examples, together with improved powder production methods and powder shaping processes.

This volume is the proceedings of the 3rd European Symposium on Engineering Ceramics, held in London, 28-29 November 1989, under the auspices of IBC Technical Services Ltd. The Symposium sessions were chaired by Eric Briscoe, who also introduced the Symposium with the very appropriate review 'Ceramics in Europe'. The term 'engineering ceramics' is commonly taken to mean a group of special high-strength and heat-resistant ceramic materials developed almost exclusively for the advanced internal combustion engine of the next century. It is not always fully appreciated that high grade fine microstructure ceramics both of the oxide and of the non-oxide classes, whether they be termed engineering, fine, special, advanced, structural or technical, have been supporting a large number of diverse and profitable industries over many decades. Indeed, in some respects these materials can be regarded as natural developments from the long established refractories field, and the distinction between an engineering ceramic and a refractory can become blurred, as the contribution in this volume on 'Nitride Bonded Carbide Engineered Ceramics' shows. It is of significance that in Japan, for example, much development work in the engineering ceramics field was initiated by the refractories industries, seeking to diversify possibly but doing so on the basis oflong experience in the refractories area. The main objective of this Symposium was to help engineers and designers to assess the present state of the field of engineering ceramics.