Engineering Commons^™

Engineering Of Lightweight Ceramic Composites By Spark Plasma Sintering, Oleg Vasylkiv

Electric Field Assisted Sintering and Related Phenomena Far From Equilibrium

It is well recognised that value of porosity and grain size influences mechanical properties such as fracture toughness, elastic modulus and strength dramatically. Boron carbide (B₄C), as well as other lightweight ceramics like TiB₂, B₆O requires high consolidation temperatures owing to its poor sinterability. Therefore such decrease of ceramics properties becomes a materials processing issue since during consolidation process on the final stage of sintering (either pressure-assisted or pressureless one) grain growth starts. To overcome this problem, various metallic and non-metallic binders are used to obtain dense borides. However, the presence of a metallic …