GTE Labs Develops Ceramic Composite

GTE Laboratories said Thursday that it has developed a durable ceramic composite that could be used for components in automobile engines of the future.

An engine made with ceramic components could operate at temperatures nearly twice those tolerable by conventional engines, reducing both fuel consumption and pollution, engineers say. However, development of such engines has stalled because most ceramics are too brittle--about 100 times more brittle than steel.

GTE Labs said its new material is “substantially more resistant to fractures and breaks than other known ceramic materials.” It is a silicon nitride matrix with a silicon carbide whisker composite, the labs said.

Microscopic hairs called whiskers make the composite 40% more resistant to internal cracking and 25% more resistant to breaking than materials not reinforced with whiskers, GTE Labs said.

GTE Labs, based in Waltham, Mass., is the research arm of Stamford, Conn.-based GTE Corp.