Toughening of super-hard ultra-fine grained B4C densified by spark-plasma sintering via SiC addition

Spark plasma sintering of mullite: Relation between microstructure, properties and spark plasma sintering (SPS) parameters

“…Hardness of mullite measured in the present study is comparatively higher than the hardness of compacts that were obtained by conventional sintering techniques [22,23]. Fracture toughness can be determined based on the radial cracks that are arising from the corners of the indented locations by considering it as a strength limiting flaw in ceramics [24,25]. With indentation method, fracture toughness of fully dense mullite sample was measured as 2.8 MPa m 1/2 and it increases up to 3.4 MPa m 1/2 corresponding to 97.5% ρth density.…”

Enhancing the spark-plasma sinterability of B4C nanopowders via room-temperature methylation induced purification

“…The most popular of these applications is perhaps that of ceramic armours for ballistic protection of both personnel and vehicles, but there are others such as wear parts and tribocomponents, and nuclear radiation shields. There is also great motivation within the field in refining the grain size of B 4 C ceramics to the ultrafine range and ideally to the nanoscale [17][18][19], with the anticipation of further improving their already ultrahigh hardness in accordance with the Hall-Petch relationship [15,20].…”

“…This undesirable combination of factors becomes especially critical if the goal pursued is to fabricate dense, ultrafine-grained or nanograined B 4 C ceramics from nanopowders. Of the two causes (i.e., the high covalence and the oxidic impurities), the former, which is an intrinsic factor, has been mitigated using spark-plasma sintering (SPS) [8,11,[17][18][19]. The latter, which is an extrinsic factor, can be circumvented by purifying the powders in some manner.…”

A Comparative Study on SiC-B4C-Si Cermet Prepared by Pressureless Sintering and Spark Plasma Sintering Methods

“…In the SiC-B 4 C-Si cermets, cracks are wavy and deflected due to the presence of SiC and re-solidified Si. [39] Trans-granular fracture is the major fracture mode for carbide/ceramic materials. This is because the cohesive strength among carbide materials is lower than that of interfacial strength between carbide and Si.…”