Comparison between pulse electric current sintering and hot pressing of silicon nitride ceramics

Samples of a Si3N4 mixed powder with oxide sintering additives, Y2O3 5 mass % and Al2O3 3 mass%, were sintered separately by pulse electric current sin tering (PECS) and by hot pressing to discuss the characteristic features of these two processing techniques. The low-temperature consolidation and the plasma effect, which have been reported to be features of the PECS process , could not be confirmed in this study, In the sintering of Si3N4 ceramics as a material for electrical insulators, the rapid consolidation, which ena bles the nanometer-scale grain size to be maintained in the dense material, was shown to be the only advantage of the PECS process.