The strength and hardness of cubic spinel SiAlON (c-Si_(6-z)Al_zO_zN_(8-z), z = 1)

摘要

The mechanical behavior of the cubic spinel SiAlON polymorph (c-Si_(6-z)Al_zO_zN_(8-z), z = 1), was modeled using an ab initio density functional technique. The cubic spinel structure exhibits a maximum stress response of appox 33 and appox 40 GPa, for the applied gamma_(11) and gamma_(23) components of strain, respectively. An existing empirical technique was employed to determine the hardness of the SiAlON crystal: appox 40 GPa. For completeness the hypothesis of the empirical formalism is discussed.