Innovations at GBC Advanced Materials
Ceramic and glass components are pivotal in modern manufacturing and product design, offering a unique combination of properties essential for various applications. Their exceptional strength, thermal stability, electrical insulation, and corrosion resistance make them indispensable in industries ranging from aerospace and defense to electronics and healthcare.
GBC Advanced Materials is a leader in manufacturing advanced ceramics and glass products. Our unwavering commitment to innovation, precision, and reliability has made us the preferred partner for businesses seeking cutting-edge solutions. GBC is ISO certified and has been meeting demanding customer requirements for over 50 years.
Premium Materials From GBC Advanced Materials
We specialize in the precision manufacturing of glass and ceramic components, catering to various industrial needs. Here are our offerings:
Ceramics
GBC Advanced Materials offers alumina ceramics with purity levels ranging from 85% to 99.8%. These ceramics are meticulously crafted using presses ranging from 1 to 500 tons, enabling precise control over tolerance and making intricate geometric configurations, large and small.
Our multi-cavity tooling facilitates fast, high-volume production at a low cost, empowering industries to innovate with ease. Moreover, our meticulous material batch control, from milling through spray drying, ensures reproducibility from order to order and throughout long production runs.
GBC also offers Mg stabilized zirconia, yttria stabilized zirconia, ZTA, steatite, fused silica, and machinable MACOR ceramic.
Glass Sealing Preforms
We offer over 100 glass compositions with thermal expansions ranging from 32 to 93 x 10-7 in/in/°C. This extensive range ensures that we can offer the perfect solution tailored to the specific requirements of every application. Our glass preforms, window frames, rings, and beads can be made according to a clients requirements facilitating easy integration into sealing fixtures, hermetic assemblies, or glass to metal seals.
By implementing stringent batch controls, we uphold the highest standards of reliability, resulting in consistent performance across all production cycles. Furthermore, our ongoing research and development efforts aim to expand our range of expansion coefficients in low-temperature sealing glasses. This enables us to address our clients' evolving needs.
GBC’s Hybralox Alumina loaded glasses were developed to be harder, and stronger to have a higher thermal conductivity than normal sealing glasses. Hybralox is self-glazing and can be metallized. By comparison to alumina ceramic, the piece part cost for Hybralox tooling is often lower.
Hybralox preforms are now being used for a wide variety of integrated circuit seals and replacements for glass-to-metal or ceramic-to-metal seals.
Advanced Manufacturing Processes
GBC Advanced Materials has consistently invested in cutting-edge technology to enhance our manufacturing capabilities. Here are some key innovations:
ISO-Static Pressing
ISO-Static Pressing is a cutting-edge technique we use to create near-net shapes of ceramic components. It involves filling a tool with ceramic powder and applying uniaxial pressures to compress it, resulting in precise shapes with minimal material waste. This technique allows us to manufacture larger components with tight tolerances, ensuring consistency and reliability in every product.
Green Machining
Green Machining involves machining ceramics in their unfired state. This approach allows for closer near-net dimensions, reducing the required post-fired machining. By machining ceramics before sintering, GBC Advanced Materials minimizes lead times and production costs while maintaining high precision and quality standards.
Post-Fired CNC and Conventional Grinding
We utilize post-fired precision CNC and conventional grinding techniques to achieve the desired dimensions and surface finishes on ceramic components. CNC machining centers equipped with precision tools allow for intricate machining operations with micron-level accuracy. Conventional grinding techniques — such as surface grinding and cylindrical grinding — further refine the surface finish of ceramic components, ensuring they meet the most demanding specifications.
Sintering
Sintering heats pressed ceramics below their melting point to form a solid, dense mass. GBC Advanced Materials employs advanced sintering techniques to enhance the strength, integrity, and densification of ceramic components, ensuring optimal performance in various applications.
Extrusion
Extrusion produces long, continuous shapes by forcing ceramic material through a shaped die. Our state-of-the-art vertical hydraulic piston extruder allows for the manufacturing of rods and tubes with precise dimensions and complex geometries. It enables us to produce high-volume, cost-effective ceramic components for various applications.
Surface Finishing and Treatments
We utilize innovative finishing techniques such as lapping, polishing, and honing to achieve the desired surface quality on ceramic components. These processes remove surface imperfections and ensure a smooth, uniform finish, enhancing the performance and durability of the final product. In addition to surface finishing, we offer innovative surface treatments such as metalizing and plating to improve the functionality and versatility of ceramic components.
Applications Across Various Industry
Here are some key applications where GBC Advanced Materials' components play a crucial role:
- Aerospace and defense: radomes, high-temperature electrical insulators, sensor components for aircraft systems and spacecraft
- Electronics: electronic substrates, IC packages, microcircuit and photonic packages, microwave device packages, sensor components for electronic devices, high-voltage insulators
- Industrial manufacturing: wear pads, thread and wire guides, seals and bearings, abrasion-resistant tube and elbow liners, nozzles, washers, ferrules
- Medical and scientific instruments: gas laser tubes, furnace liner tubes, plasma arc insulators, lab instrument tubes and sample holders, thermometry sensors, gas analyzer components, substrates for medical implants, microfluidic components
- Semiconductor and telecommunications: Substrates for electronic packages, power transistor bases, semiconductor equipment insulators, standoffs-insulators, microwave tubes, heat sinks
Why Choose GBC Advanced Materials
Extensive Experience
With over 50 years of experience in the materials arena, we understand the intricacies of producing ceramic and glass components. Our team’s knowledge and expertise ensure that every product meets the highest quality standards, instilling confidence in the reliability and performance of our components.
Cutting-Edge Technology
GBC Advanced Materials invests in cutting-edge technology to stay ahead of industry trends and deliver innovative solutions to its customers. Our 60,000 sq. ft. facility in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, boasts state-of-the-art equipment and machinery — including CNC presses, machining centers, and extruders — to manufacture premium-quality components.
Customizable Solutions
We understand that every customer has unique requirements and challenges. That is why we offer custom solutions tailored to meet your specific needs. Whether you need precision ceramics for aerospace or high-performance glass for medical devices, our experts collaborate closely with you to deliver solutions that exceed expectations.
Cost-Effectiveness
Our manufacturing processes are designed to minimize material waste and machining costs, resulting in cost-effective solutions for their clients. Whether short production runs or prototype development, we offer low tooling costs and reduced lead times compared to other manufacturing methods. Our near-net shape fabrication capabilities further reduce material and machining costs, making us an ideal choice for businesses looking to optimize their production processes. We assist in the design to manufacture process by providing recommendations to save on cost and lead time. We have an in-house tooling modification shop, which enables us to reduce lead time and dependance on outside vendors. We have thousands of tools in house which oftentimes allows us to avoid high setup fees and tooling charges.
Quality Assurance
We are committed to maintaining the highest quality throughout the manufacturing process. Our ISO 9001:2015 certification demonstrates our dedication to quality management and continuous improvement. From raw material sourcing to final inspection, every step of our manufacturing process is subjected to rigorous quality control measures. This provides our customers peace of mind, knowing their products will meet the most demanding specifications.
Exceptional Customer Service
At GBC Advanced Materials, customer satisfaction is a top priority. Our dedicated team offers support and guidance every step of the way, from initial design consultation to final product delivery. Businesses can rely on us for responsive communication, timely updates, and personalized service that exceeds expectations.
Technological Innovation
We are dedicated to continuous improvement and always strive to enhance our processes, capabilities, and offerings. Whether developing new ceramic compositions, refining techniques, or exploring new applications, we are always looking for ways to push the boundaries of what is possible. This proactive approach ensures our customers receive the most advanced and effective materials.
Elevating Ceramic and Glass Manufacturing Excellence With GBC Advanced Materials
GBC Advanced Materials continues to set the standard for excellence in the modern manufacturing of high-quality ceramic and glass solutions. Our cutting-edge machinery and manufacturing processes guarantee the utmost quality and reliability in every component we produce. With over 50 years of industry experience and an unwavering commitment to continuous innovation, we remain at the forefront of technological evolution.
Experience the difference that GBC Advanced Materials can make for your projects. Contact us to learn more, or request a quote now to get started!