Paper Title
Wear Testing and Characterization of Alumina Ceramic to Predict Erosion Rate

Abstract
In aerospace applications electric thruster’s wall material is made of ceramics. Alumina is one of preferred ceramics materials since it can withstand very high temperature and has excellent insulation properties at high properties. The life time of electric thruster is mainly limited by the erosion of the ceramics materials protecting the thruster’s circuits. Thus understanding the wall erosion rate and its dependence on the ceramic material is very important. In the present project work five samples of the ceramics material consisting of alumina and silicon dioxide are prepared. The test samples are prepared by mixing the various proportions of alumina with silica. Samples of 92%, 94%, 96%, 98% and 99.5% Al2O3 is mixed with 8%, 6%, 4%, 2% and 0.5% silica as additives. The samples are moulded using hydraulic press moulding. Wear test, compression test, flexural test and hardness test are conducted on these samples. The results are tabulated and the sample which gave minimum wear was selected as a suitable material for thruster wall material.