A non-destructive technique for measuring ceramic porosity using liquid nitrogen [An article from: Journal of Archaeological Science]

This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Archaeological Science, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Because porosity can affect a wide range of performance attributes in vessels, its measurement has become an important component of ceramic technological studies. To measure ceramic porosity, archaeologists have borrowed well-established methods from the material sciences. However, these methods can have drawbacks for archaeological applications including the potential to damage archaeological residues contained within the sherd, the need for expensive equipment, and/or the use of hazardous materials. In this paper we introduce a new, non-destructive method for measuring porosity based on the infusion of liquid nitrogen into the sherd. A comparison of results obtained from this method with those obtained from other approaches indicates that the technique produces reliable results.