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Umicore Kyocera - Ceramic Precision Balls for High-Performance Applications
This range of ceramic precision balls is designed for high-performance applications, leveraging their perfectly spherical shape, which is achieved through precision machining and polishing. These balls, manufactured from either pure alumina, 3Y-TZP zirconia, or Si3N4 silicon nitride, exhibit diverse properties such as high density, excellent wear resistance, and low friction coefficient. They are particularly well-suited for dimensional control gauges, ceramic ball bearings, and pumps handling corrosive liquids. The precision spheres offer sizes from 1.00 mm to 100.00 mm with precise dimensional accuracy up to 2.5 µm, facilitating numerous applications. Alumina and zirconia are chosen for their high thermal shock resistance, withstanding temperatures over 1950 °C and doing so with minimal expansion. These balls ensure long operational life in applications exposed to high friction, such as grinding and ball bearings. Additionally, they find roles in non-return valves due to their robust properties, maintaining dimensional stability under varying conditions.
The precision balls are perfectly spherical in shape, making them high performance tools. They can be used as dimensional control gauges, in ceramic ball bearings or as a component in pumps handling corrosive liquids. The balls we offer are made of pure alumina, 3Y-TZP zirconia or Si3N4 silicon nitride, whose density and other properties (wear resistance, coefficient of friction) make it possible to obtain the best results in these fields of application.
Precision balls from our standard product range
The precision balls we offer are made of sintered Kyocera F99.7 alumina (99.7% pure) or 3Y-TZP zirconia. Their shapes are perfectly spherical thanks to precision machining and polishing that ensures the absence of imperfections on the surface of the ball. The precision of this sphericity is 0.25 µm (grade 10). Other grades are also available on request from grade 50 to grade 5.
The size of the balls we offer varies from 1.00 mm to 100.00 mm in diameter. The possibilities in terms of dimensions are numerous since we offer balls with diameters differing by only 0.175 mm. The precision on these diameters is 2.5 µm.
The ceramic balls we offer are generally sold individually.
Why choose alumina or zirconia beads?
Zirconia and alumina are two technical ceramics with many advantages for the manufacture of balls. They both have an important density: the density of alumina is about 4 g/cm3 against 5.8 g/cm3 for zirconia. These materials are very hard and offer an excellent resistance to wear and corrosion.
These industrial ceramics have many other properties. For example, they are resistant to thermal shocks: zirconia offers a very high resistance to temperatures that can exceed 1000 °C. Alumina can withstand even higher temperatures (up to 1950 °C for 99.7% pure Kyocera alumina). This makes our balls ideal for use at high temperatures. On the other hand, they are resistant to wear and abrasion, which allows them to be used in contact with any other product or material and ensures a good operational life for our products. Wear resistance is especially important when the balls are used for grinding or ball bearing applications, as they will be subjected to high friction. In addition, the very good dimensional stability of zirconium oxide and aluminum oxide (even at high temperatures) ensures the functionality of products made with these balls under any conditions and even allows our precision balls to be used as templates.
In what applications are precision balls used?
Like grinding balls, precision balls can be used for attrition or for mixing certain products. But their perfect sphericity allows them to be used for other applications. For example, they can be used in ceramic bearings and high precision and/or high speed ball bearings. Their excellent wear resistance ensures long operational life of the bearing system. The dimensional stability of alumina and zirconia allow for proper operation under any conditions (even at high temperatures, for example, since the balls will remain unchanged).
Ceramic precision balls are also often used in the manufacture of non-return valves. This is a device for controlling the direction of flow of a fluid in a pipe. There are guided valves, flapper valves and ball valves. In the latter, a ball ensures a single direction of flow for the fluid, preventing any backflow of gas or liquid.
Finally, thanks to the excellent dimensional stability of our technical ceramics (due to the purity and homogeneity of their internal microstructures), our precision balls are very good dimensional references. They can be used as a template at high temperatures since they do not expand with heat.