Over 100 customers and specialised workers attended the highly successful TEAM Day 2018. Every year this special event is organised by Sacmi Team, the alliance of Group companies operating on the cutting edge of advanced ceramics: Laeis, Riedhammer, Sama, Alpha Ceramics and Sacmi Imola. Underneath clear skies on the eve of the international Ceramitec fair in Munich, the meeting of 9th April 2018 focused on a broad range of applications, technologies and best practices in the advanced ceramics world. Once again, the event offered a not-to-be-missed opportunity to exchange information, contacts and experience, thanks also to the participation of companies and top speakers illustrating the state of the art and exploring the prospects for the technical ceramics sector.
Sacmi Imola got the meeting under way with a talk on ceramic manufacturing in the era of 4.0, a new manufacturing philosophy – characterised by dedicated platforms and enabling technologies – that responds to a clear consumer and market need: that of shortening the time to market via flexible manufacturing and personalised solutions. From Sacmi's take on smart manufacturing the talks went on to explore every aspect of advanced ceramics: for example, German company FGK Höhr-Grenzhausen illustrated the decisive steps in the manufacture of high density, uniformly structured sintered articles.
The synthesis of nano-structured ceramic powders via the EDS (Emulsion Detonation Synthesis) process to produce specific zirconium powders (the goal being, among other things, to give products greater mechanical strength and shock resistance) was, instead, the topic explored by Portuguese firm Innovnano. They were followed by Kit, a German group specializing in research into the ceramic components used to make lithium batteries, a huge potential market that has grown alongside the electric car market.
Indian firm Y Srinivasa Rao showed how all the advantages of pressure casting (tried and tested, so far, in the ceramic tableware and sanitaryware fields) can apply to technical ceramics by illustrating a series of lab tests made during the manufacture of advanced high density ceramics using this technology. Ceramic insulators - especially the combined use of ceramic and metal components in the manufacture of these particular components - were the subject of the talk by LAPP Insulators, a Germany-based group that is the European leader in the sector. Last but not least CoorsTek looked into some of the applications of advanced ceramics based on aluminium oxide (with applications in electronics, insulators, semi-conductor manufacture) and other materials (zirconium, etc.), with unprecedented developments as regards moulding technologies.
The meeting was closed out by Sama, a member company of Team by Sacmi that recently inaugurated the new Sama F.I.T. (forschung, innovation and training) research centre where, thanks to a fully operational pilot line, companies can find a response to their research and product needs in the isostatic pressing field. Characterised by nothing less than excellence, the facility inaugurated at Weissenstadt - which organised its own special open day on the eve of the fair - is set to become a European reference point for the ceramic tableware, tile and sanitaryware industries.