The first NATO Advanced Study Institute on Nitrogen Ceramics held in 1976 at Canterbury came at a particularly significant moment in the development of this subject. The five-year period, 1971-75, had been an especially fruitful one in very many respects for work in the areas of covalent materials in general, and of the nitrides in particular. The Institute was therefore able to cap ture fully the spirit of excitement and adventure engendered by the outputs of numerous national research programmes, as well as those of many smaller research groups, concerning ceramics potent ially suitable for...

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...