High-pressure and high-temperature sintering of pure cubic silicon carbide:A study on stress-strain and densification

Silicon carbide(SiC)is a high-performance structural ceramic material with excellent comprehensive properties,and is unmatched by metals and other structural materials.In this paper,raw SiC powder with an average grain size of 5μm was sintered by an isothermal-compression process at 5.0 GPa and 1500?C;the maximum hardness of the sintered samples was31.3 GPa.Subsequently,scanning electron microscopy was used to observe the microscopic morphology of the recovered SiC samples treated in a temperature and extended pressure range of 0-1500?C and 0-16.0 GPa,respectively.Defects and plastic deformation in the SiC grains were further analyzed by transmission electron microscopy.Further,high-pressure in situ synchrotron radiation x-ray diffraction was used to study the intergranular stress distribution and yield strength under non-hydrostatic compression.This study provides a new viewpoint for the sintering of pure phase micron-sized SiC particles.