K. Hirao et al., PROCESSING STRATEGY FOR PRODUCING HIGHLY ANISOTROPIC SILICON-NITRIDE, Journal of the American Ceramic Society, 78(6), 1995, pp. 1687-1690
Silicon nitride with a preferred orientation of large elongated grains
was obtained by tape casting of raw powder slurry seeded with rodlike
beta-Si3N4 particles, followed by a gas pressure sintering under 1 MP
a nitrogen pressure. The large elongated grains developed from seeds l
ay in planes parallel to the casting direction in a two-dimensional di
stribution. Increased fracture toughness (11.1 MPa . m(1/2)) and bendi
ng strength (1100 MPa) were achieved in the direction perpendicular to
the grains alignment compared to specimens with a random distribution
of elongated grains. Moreover, the specimens exhibited a high Weibull
modulus of 46 due to the uniform distribution of large grains.