A method of: (i) providing a mould, comprising a mould body and a mould cavity; (ii) positioning the workpiece within the mould cavity; (iii) providing a plurality of part locator rods, each rod being located in the mould body and protruding into the mould cavity, a distal end of each rod abutting against an outer surface of the workpiece; (iv) providing a fluid, the fluid filling a void defined between an outer surface of the workpiece and an internal surface of the mould cavity; (v) cooling the mould, workpiece and fluid to below a freezing point of the fluid; (vi) removing the workpiece encapsulated in frozen fluid, from the cavity, with the rods protruding from outer surface of frozen fluid; (vii) securing the encapsulated workpiece on a machine tool; and (viii) using the protruding part locator rods to position the workpiece on the machine tool in readiness for machining operation.

A method for preparing an infrared radiation ceramic material includes mixing and ball milling raw materials of Fe.sub.2O.sub.3, MnO.sub.2 and CuO in a mass ratio to obtain a mixed powder; pressing the mixed powder; adjusting laser spot, laser power and laser sintering time of a laser; irradiating or sintering by a first laser the pressed mixed powder in a crucible for a high-temperature solid-phase reaction to obtain an AB.sub.2O.sub.4 type ferrite powder; obtaining a first mixture by mixing the AB.sub.2O.sub.4 type ferrite powder and a cordierite powder in a mass ratio; adding a sintering aid and a nucleating agent for ball milling; obtaining a second mixture by mixing the first mixture and a binder for aging; pressing the second mixture; and irradiating or sintering the pressed second mixture by a second laser to obtain the infrared radiation ceramic material.

A method is provided for densifying a ceramic matrix composite (CMC) preform in which a porous CMC preform is subjected to slurry infiltration wherein metal carbide particulate material is introduced into the spaces between fiber tows of the CMC preform to form an infiltrated CMC preform. Thereafter, molten metal or molten metal alloy is introduced into the infiltrated CMC preform by melt infiltration to react the metal or molten metal alloy with the metal carbide particulate material and create a ceramic matrix within the CMC preform forming a ceramic matrix composite. The metal carbide particulate material is selected from zirconium carbide particles, hafnium carbide particles, tantalum carbide particles, niobium carbide particles, titanium carbide particles, tungsten carbide particles, cobalt carbide particles, vanadium carbide particles, chromium carbide particles, ytterbium carbide particles, yttrium carbide particles, tantalum hafnium carbide particles, and mixtures thereof.

A ferroelectric-piezoelectric ceramic energy storage material and a hybrid process preparation method and use thereof are provided. The ferroelectric-piezoelectric ceramic energy storage material is prepared with micro-nano composite structured particles formed by uniformly mixing polycrystalline powder with sol followed by heat-treatment, the micro-nano composite structured particles including the polycrystalline powder and a nanoscale PLZS component layer distributed around the polycrystalline powder. The method includes preparing sol and polycrystalline powder; performing heat-treatment on the sol and the polycrystalline powder to obtain micro-nano composite structured particles; and obtaining a ferroelectric-piezoelectric ceramic energy storage material sample through a casting process and sintering. By mixing with sol components, the specific surface area and oxygen vacancy content are increased, which is beneficial for reducing the sintering temperature of ceramic materials and improving their dielectric energy storage performance.