Abstract
SiC materials have been extensively studied for high temperature components in advanced energy system and advanced gas turbine. However, the brittle characteristics of SiC such as low fracture toughness and low strain-to fracture still impose a severe limitation on practical applications of SiC materials. For these reasons, $SiC_f/SiC$ composites can be considered as a promising for various structural materials, because of their good fracture toughness compared with monolithic SiC ceramics. But, high temperature and pressure lead to the degradation of the reinforcing fiber during the hot pressing. Therefore, reduction of sintering temperature and pressure is key requirements for the fabrication of $SiC_f/SiC$ composites by hot pressing method. In the present work, Monolithic LPS-SiC was fabricated by hot pressing method in Ar atmosphere at 1760 $^{\circ}C$, 1780 $^{\circ}C$, 1800 $^{\circ}C$ and 1820 $^{\circ}C$ under 20 MPa using $Al_2O_3-Y_2O_3$ system as sintering additives in order to low sintering temperature. The starting powder was high purity ${\beta}-SiC$ nano-powder with an average particle size of 30 nm. Monolithic LPS-SiC was evaluated in terms of sintering density, micro-structure, flexural strength, elastic modulus and so on. Sintered density, flexural strength and elastic modulus of fabricated LPS-SiC increased with increasing the sintering temperature. In the micro-structure of this specimen, it was found that grain of sintered body was grown from 30 nm to 200 nm.
