Open AccessDesign of experiment approach for sintering study of nanocrystalline SiC fabricated using plasma pressure compaction
Author(s) -
Manish Bothara,
Pritha Vijay,
Sundar V. Atre,
S.J. Park,
Randall M. German,
T. S. Sudarshan,
R. Radhakrishnan
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
science of sintering/science of sintering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.309
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1820-7413
pISSN - 0350-820X
DOI - 10.2298/sos0902125b
Subject(s) - materials science , sintering , compaction , consolidation (business) , microstructure , silicon carbide , nanocrystalline material , composite material , fracture toughness , nanotechnology , accounting , business
Plasma pressure compaction (P2C) is a novel sintering technique that enables the consolidation of silicon carbide with a nanoscale microstructure at a relatively low temperature. To achieve a high final density with optimized mechanical properties, the effects of various sintering factors pertaining to the temperature-time profile and pressure were characterized. This paper reports a design of experiment approach used to optimize the processing for a 100 nm SiC powder focused on four sintering factors: temperature, time, pressure, and heating rate. Response variables included the density and mechanical properties. A L9 orthogonal array approach that includes the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to optimize the processing factors. All of the sintering factors have significant effect on the density and mechanical properties. A final density of 98.1% was achieved with a temperature of 1600°C, hold time of 30 min, pressure of 50 MPa, and heating rate of 100°C/min. The hardness reached 18.4 GPa with a fracture toughness of 4.6 MPa√m, and these are comparable to reports from prior studies using higher consolidation temperatures