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The SiC/Al4SiC4 composites with the improved mechanical properties and thermal conductivity were fabricated by the in-situ reaction of polycarbosilane (PCS) and Al powders using spark plasma sintering. The addition of 5 wt% yttrium (Y) sintering additive was useful to obtain fully dense samples after sintering at a relatively low temperature of 1650 ℃, due to the formation of a liquid phase during sintering. The average particle size of the in-situ formed SiC was ~300 nm. The fracture toughness (4.9 MPa·m1/2), Vickers hardness (16.3 GPa), and thermal conductivity (15.8 W/(m·K)) of the SiC/Al4SiC4 composite sintered at 1650 ℃ were significantly higher than the hardness (13.2 GPa), fracture toughness (2.16 MPa·m1/2), and thermal conductivity (7.8 W/(m·K)) of the monolithic Al4SiC4 ceramics. The improved mechanical and thermal properties of the composites were attributed to the high density, fine grain size, as well as the optimized grain boundary structure of the SiC/Al4SiC4 composites.


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Fabrication, microstructure, and properties of SiC/Al4SiC4 multiphase ceramics via an in-situ formed liquid phase sintering

Show Author's information Junwen LIUa,bXiaobing ZHOUb( )Peter TATARKOcQin YUANbLan ZHANGaHongjie WANGaZhengren HUANGbQing HUANGb
State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Engineering Laboratory of Advanced Energy Materials, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo 315201, China
Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, Slovakia Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9,845 36 Bratislava 45, Slovakia

Abstract

The SiC/Al4SiC4 composites with the improved mechanical properties and thermal conductivity were fabricated by the in-situ reaction of polycarbosilane (PCS) and Al powders using spark plasma sintering. The addition of 5 wt% yttrium (Y) sintering additive was useful to obtain fully dense samples after sintering at a relatively low temperature of 1650 ℃, due to the formation of a liquid phase during sintering. The average particle size of the in-situ formed SiC was ~300 nm. The fracture toughness (4.9 MPa·m1/2), Vickers hardness (16.3 GPa), and thermal conductivity (15.8 W/(m·K)) of the SiC/Al4SiC4 composite sintered at 1650 ℃ were significantly higher than the hardness (13.2 GPa), fracture toughness (2.16 MPa·m1/2), and thermal conductivity (7.8 W/(m·K)) of the monolithic Al4SiC4 ceramics. The improved mechanical and thermal properties of the composites were attributed to the high density, fine grain size, as well as the optimized grain boundary structure of the SiC/Al4SiC4 composites.

Keywords: spark plasma sintering, SiC, Al4SiC4, Y3Si2C2

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Publication history

Received: 16 September 2019
Revised: 29 December 2019
Accepted: 06 January 2020
Published: 07 April 2020
Issue date: April 2020

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© The author(s) 2020

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11975296 and 51811540402), and the Natural Science Foundation of Ningbo City (Grant No. 2018A610001). This work was also supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract No. APVV-SK-CN-2017-0040. Peter TATARKO gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the project APVV-17-0328.

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