Microwave versus conventional sintering of silicon carbide tiles

Abstract

Silicon carbide is being evaluated as an armor material because of its lightweight, high-hardness, and excellent armor efficiency. However, one of the problems associated with silicon carbide is the high cost associated with achieving fully dense tiles. Full density requires either hot pressing and sintering or reaction bonding. Past efforts have shown that hot pressed tiles have a higher armor efficiency than those produced by reaction bonded sintering. An earlier stuy showed that the acoustic properties of fully-dense silicon carbide tiles were enhanced through the use of post-sintered microwave heat treatments. One of the least expensive forming techniques is to isostatically press-and-sinter. In this study, the authors have used microwave energy to densify silicon carbide green bodies. Microwave sintering has been demonstrated to be a very quick way to sinter ceramics such as alumina to exceptionally high densities. Previous work has shown that microwave post treatment of fully-dense reaction bonded silicon carbide tiles significantly improves the acoustic properties of the tiles. These properties include Poisson`s ratio, Young`s modulus, shear modulus, and bulk modulus.