| porcelain | <botany> Purslain. A fine translucent or semitransculent kind of earthenware, made first in China and Japan, but now also in Europe and America; called also China, or China ware. "Porcelain, by being pure, is apt to break." (Dryden) Ivory porcelain, porcelain with a surface like ivory, produced by depolishing. See Depolishing. Porcelain clay. See Clay. <zoology> Porcelain crab, a cowry. Origin: F. Porcelaine, It. Porcellana, orig, the porcelain shell, or Venus shell (Cypraea porcellana), from a dim. Fr. L. Porcus pig, probably from the resemblance of the shell in shape to a pig's back. Porcelain was called after this shell, either on account of its smoothness and whiteness, or because it was believed to be made from it. See Pork. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
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| porcelain gallbladder | <radiology> Calcium incrustation of gallbladder wall, 0.6-0.8% of cholecystectomy patients, 80% female, 10-20% develop gallbladder carcinoma, 90% associated with gallstones findings: nonfunctioning gallbladder on oral cholecystogram, highly echogenic shadowing curvilinear sturucture in the gallbladder fossa (Differential diagnosis: stone-filled contracted gall bladder), echogenic gallbladder wall with little acoustic shadowing (Differential diagnosis: emphysematous cholecystitis), scattered irregular clumps of echoes with posterior acoustic shadowing (12 Dec 1998) |
| porcelain inlay | A fused porcelain restoration luted in a cavity prepared in a tooth. (05 Mar 2000) |
| dental porcelain | <chemical> A type of porcelain used in dental restorations, either jacket crowns or inlays, artificial teeth, or metal-ceramic crowns. It is essentially a mixture of particles of feldspar and quartz, the feldspar melting first and providing a glass matrix for the quartz. Dental porcelain is produced by mixing ceramic powder (a mixture of quartz, kaolin, pigments, opacifiers, a suitable flux, and other substances) with distilled water. Chemical name: Dental materials and fillings, porcelain (12 Dec 1998) |
| pernot furnace | A reverberatory furnace with a circular revolving hearth, used in making steel. Origin: So called from Charles Pernot, its inventor. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| muffle furnace | An electric furnace heated by direct transfer of heat from a resistant muffle, a dental furnace heated by a muffle. (05 Mar 2000) |
| spreader stoker furnace | A furnace in which fuel is automatically or mechanically spread. Part of the fuel is burned in suspension. Large pieces fall on a grate. (05 Dec 1998) |
| dental furnace | <dentistry> A furnace used to eliminate the wax pattern from the investment mold prior to casting in metal, a furnace used to fuse and glaze dental porcelains. (05 Mar 2000) |
| dutch oven furnace | One of the earliest types of furnaces, having a large, rectangular box lined with firebrick (refractory) on the sides and top. Commonly used for burning wood. Heat is stored in the refractory and radiated to a conical fuel pile in the centre of the furnace. (05 Dec 1998) |
| fuel-cell furnace | A variation of the Dutch oven design, that usually incorporates a primary and secondary combustion chamber (cell). The primary chamber is a vertical refractory-lined cylinder with a grate at the bottom in which combustion is partially completed. Combustion is completed in the secondary chamber. (05 Dec 1998) |
| furnace | An enclosed chamber or container used to burn biomass in a controlled manner to produce heat for space or process heating. (05 Dec 1998) |