Abstract
It is know that $Si_3-N_4$ bonded SiC has almost all the valuable properties needed for the high temperature material and thus has bery wide range of applicability. Si powder and two different sized SiC powder were used as the raw mateials. Specimens were prepared by heating the green compact mode of the raw materials with polyvinyl alcohol binder in the nitrogen atmosphere. The bond-ing of SiC particles is brought about with the formation of reaction bonded silicon nitride phase between the particles he influences of the variation of the relative amounts of the raw materials and the amount of the organic binder on the density and the bend strength of the specimens were investigated. It was shown that the calculation of the amount of the nitridation of Si is somewhat complicated matter since some portion of the organic binder reacts with the Si during the firing process. Fixing the Si amount to 20w/o the distributions of the size of the SiC particles that gives the maximum density and the maximum strnegth were obtained through experiments. It was observed that the two distributions were not equal to each other. As the amount of Si increased the amount of Si reacted with nitrogen and the strength increased. The fracture mode was intergranular for the most part and the transgranular fracture was scarcely observed.