Studies on the scale-up of the microwave-assisted nitridation and sintering of reaction-bonded silicon nitride

摘要

Studies using laboratory test samples have shown that microwave heating produces sintered reaction-bonded silicon nitride materials with improved properties. The final challenge for processing this material by microwave heating is the development of a technology for processing larger batch-size quantities of these materials. Initial microwave scale-up experiments were performed using powder compacts of a bucket tappet geometry. In experiments using microwave-transparent boron nitride sample crucibles, temperature gradients within some crucibles led to larger variations in the sample densities than were obtained with the conventionally processed samples. The use of a microwave-suscepter type crucible made of silicon carbide and boron nitride resulted in an improved temperature uniformity and in density variations comparable to those obtained for the control groups.