MASTER SINTERING CURVE ANALYSIS OF LIQUID-PHASE SINTERED, NANOSCALE SILICON CARBIDE FABRICATED IN A PLASMA PRESSURE COMPACTION SYSTEM

摘要

Nanostructured ceramics offer significant improvements in properties over the corresponding materials with grain sizes on the order of tens to hundreds of microns. Silicon carbide (SiC) samples with grain sizes on the order of 100 nm, can result in improved strength, chemical resistance, thermal stability and electrical resistivity that can be tailored. In this study, nanoscale SiC was fabricated in a plasma pressure compaction (P~2C) system. Microstructure of the resulting samples was studied and the hardness was measured. Further, Master Sintering Curve (MSC) analysis was used to model the densification behavior of SiC powder sintered by P~2C method. Q values for the three different pressures of 10 MPa, 30 MPa and 50 MPa were obtained as 1666 kJ, 1034 kJ and 1162 kJ respectively. This suggested that there might be an optimum pressure for densification.