1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to dense, virtually pore free, sintered silicon nitride ceramic compositions having simultaneously high mechanical strength, high reliability (Weibull Modulus) and high fracture toughness.
2. Background Art
Silicon nitride ceramics are well known as materials capable of high strengths, high toughness values (relative to most ceramics), and high strength at temperatures above 1000° C. Silicon nitride ceramics also have high reliability relative to other ceramics, exhibited by a small variation of strengths when a large number of samples is tested. If the composition and microstructure are designed well, the material can be flaw tolerant. Strength variation and flaw tolerance are expressed by high Weibull modulus values. It is desirable to have high values for all three mentioned properties: strength, Weibull modulus and fracture toughness, and this has not been achieved simultaneously by prior art. It is also desirable to produce silicon nitride with these properties at a reasonable cost without the use of expensive densification techniques.
Silicon nitride with the above combination of properties would be very desirable for a variety of industrial applications where strength and reliability are important. Examples are cutting tools, ball bearings, dewatering paper segments, insulators for down-hole oil drilling, cam-roller followers or tappet shims, gun barrels, vehicle and personnel armor.
Silicon nitride toughness is a result of the material's inter-twining needle-like grain structure, which can hinder the crack extension in the material by bridging the crack with intercepting grains. It is well known to anyone familiar with silicon nitride that the toughness is influenced by the nature and amount of the sintering aids used in the ceramic, the developed microstructure (grain width and length distribution) as well as the de-bonding ease at the silicon nitride grain and its grain boundary interface. State of the art silicon nitride materials typically have a fracture toughness values in the 5-7 MPa·m1/2 range, and can have strengths ranging from 600 MPa to over 1000 MPa. Typically, however a compromise has to be reached between the two, since high fracture toughness requires a well developed network of large, reinforcing elongated grains in the microstructure, which then become strength limiting for the material. Additionally, due to these issues, even when high strength material can be made, occasional low strength specimens are encountered, reducing reliability and Weibull modulus.
The difficulty in attaining a combination of properties mentioned above can be seen in the prior art.
Li et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,637,540) teach a manufacturing method for silicon nitride material with fracture toughness values from 8 to 9.2 MPa·m1/2, but report room temperature strengths between 650 and 866 MPa. The exact bar size is not reported. The invention further reports that the majority of fracture origins are long β-Si3N4 grains, reported to be approximately 28-40 μm in size. This disclosure teaches additions of at least two rare earth oxides in combination with SrO and metal carbides, that are densified to full density at above 1900° C., followed by an even higher temperature heat treatment.
Similarly, Li et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,449,649) show that while making silicon nitride with fracture toughness of 10.6 MPa·m1/2 (example 3 in patent), this material's 4-point average bend strength is below 600 MPa.
Pujari (WIPO Patent Application WO 2008/080058) shows a single example of a silicon nitride material (coded N3 in application) with fracture toughness over 8.12 MPa·m1/2 (measured using a non standard technique) with a strength of 841 MPa evaluated on MOR bars of unknown size but with length up to 12 mm. It is known that small bars have lower strength than larger ones. The same material composition processed for shorter times or different temperatures resulted in a stronger material but with toughness less than 6 MPa·m1/2. This clearly shows the difficulty in attaining both high strength and toughness simultaneously in silicon nitride. The teachings of the above disclosure are based on silicon nitride with simultaneous additions of La2O3, Al2O3, Nd2O3, AlN, TiC and TiO2, and the reinforcing grains are shown to be up to approximately 4 μm in size.
Quadir et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,030,599) teaches a method of manufacture of Si3N4 by adding at least three rare earth oxide sintering aids in addition to alumina to silicon nitride. However, the resulting strengths of the materials were below 650 MPa, and fracture toughness was not reported.
Becher et al. (J. Am. Ceram. Soc., 91 [7] 2328-2336) have reported that hot pressed strengths of over 1000 MPa (on small, non-standard bars) can be obtained on silicon nitride with 8% additions of La2O3, Gd2O3 or Lu2O3 with 2% MgO additions. Weibull moduli were not reported in the paper, however based on the reported standard deviations and mean values, and by using Monte Carlo simulations, the Weibull modulus was most likely below 10 in all three tested materials. All three of these materials were measured to have a high long crack (R-curve) toughness (10 to 12 MPa·m1/2). The toughness was not measured using any of the standard ASTM C1421 techniques, therefore values can not be compared to other materials. In the reported micrographs, the largest reinforcing grains in the materials were up to about 5 μm.
Satet et al (J. Am. Ceram. Soc., 88 [9] 2485-2490) reported mean strengths of silicon nitride (with RE2O3, MgO and SiO2 additions, where RE=Sc; Lu; Yb; Y; Sm or La) from approximately 900 to 1050 MPa, but the toughness was from 5.5 to 7.0 MPa·m1/2 (using a standard method). The reinforcing grain length was up to 8 μm.