High temperature bending creep behavior of a multi-cation doped α/β-SiAlON composite

SiAlON ceramics with high hardness and high toughness can be made through designing α/β-SiAlON composites. An important advantage of α-SiAlON phase is that the amount of intergranular phase is reduced by the transient liquid phase being absorbed into the matrix of α-SiAlON phase during sintering. But, the thermal stability of the α-SiAlON phase is an important concern for α/β-SiAlON composites especially at high temperatures. The use of different types of single or multiple cations during fabrication directly affects resultant microstructures and mechanical behavior of α/β-SiAlON composites. In this study, the creep behavior of a multi-cation (Y, Sm and Ca) doped α/β-SiAlON composite, in which aluminum-containing nitrogen melilite solid solution phase was designed as intergranular phase, was investigated by four-point bending creep tests under stresses from 50 to 150 MPa and at temperatures from 1300 °C to 1400 °C in air. The stress exponent was determined to be 1.6 ± 0.13 at 1400 °C and the creep activation energy was calculated to be 692 ± 37 kJ/mol−1. Grain boundary sliding coupled with diffusion was identified as the rate-controlling creep mechanism for the α/β-SiAlON composite.