Silicon Carbide Ceramics

Silicon Carbide (SiC) behaves much like diamond, being one of the lightest, hardest, and strongest advanced ceramic materials available today. Additionally, SiC offers excellent resistance to abrasion and erosion as well as low thermal expansion coefficient.

we offer dense StarCeram SiC ceramic in various shapes and sizes produced using either reaction sintering or conventional ceramic forming methods, each method having an impactful microstructure for final products.

High-temperature strength

Silicon Carbide (SiC), commonly referred to as Carborundum, is one of the hardest and lightest advanced ceramic materials currently available. Due to its outstanding properties, it has become one of the preferred choices in environments where other materials cannot withstand heat stress.

SiC is known to maintain its strength up to 1600oC while also remaining chemically pure and resistant to oxidation even at these higher process temperatures, making it ideal for wafer tray supports and paddles in semiconductor furnaces as well as kiln shelves with wide temperature fluctuations.

Due to its resistance to abrasion and erosion, this material can be found in chemical plants for spray nozzles and other components, and grinding/cutting applications as well as environments like flue gas desulphurisation plants.

Excellent wear resistance

Silicon carbide is a structural ceramic with exceptional wear resistance, low thermal expansion coefficient and high hardness; these properties make it a desirable material in industrial applications like combustion chambers and flue gas desulphurisation plants. Silicon carbide also finds use as an abrasive for blasting nozzles as well as corrosion and wear-resistant parts in kiln furniture such as hearth plates, recuperator tubes, pusher slabs, skid rails and lightweight girders.

Boron carbide and silicon carbide are popular choices as tribological components in the chemical industry, due to their exceptional hardness and wear resistance at higher temperatures. Their exceptional hardness and wear resistance make them suitable for use in nozzles, pumps, dies and cutting tools as well as being easily formed into shapes that replace metal components in many instances. They also exhibit excellent chemical attack resistance.

Nitride-bonded silicon carbide was proven to outshone both steel and padding weld in all soil conditions tested, due to its oxide barrier preventing direct contact between attacking species and substrate. Furthermore, its oxidation resistance exceeded most materials; degradation occurred more slowly than metallic or abrasive materials, making nitride-bonded silicon carbide an excellent material for long-term use in hostile environments where oxygen could reach surface and cause damage.

Excellent thermal shock resistance

Silicon carbide ceramics possess excellent thermal shock resistance, making them suitable for use in an array of applications such as filtration, inertial launchers and rocket engine nozzles. Foam ceramic filtration is commonly employed to remove nonmetallic inclusions from alloys and purify metal solution while abrasion-resistant SiC tiles may be found lining car exhaust gas purifiers.

Ceramic’s thermal shock resistance relies on their coefficient of thermal expansion. As temperatures fluctuate, its thermal expansion varies accordingly, creating what is known as a thermal gradient, often creating stress on its surface and eventually leading to fracture.

Thermal shock resistance of ceramics can be tested using the Hasselmann Method, in which test coupons are exposed to temperatures between 300o and 1000o, then quickly quenched in cool fluid before their flexural strength drops are measured at various temperature drops – those showing the lowest drop are considered the most resilient against thermal shocks.

Silicon carbide boasts both excellent thermal shock resistance and hardness, making it suitable for various industrial uses such as abrasives and wear-resistant parts. Furthermore, this material can withstand the abrasive action of machining, water jet cutting and sandblasting operations while still remaining highly corrosion resistant at higher temperatures.

Excellent corrosion resistance

Silicon carbide is an ultrahard ceramic material with exceptional abrasion resistance and corrosion protection properties, remaining strong even at high temperatures, making it perfect for use in harsh environments – it’s one of the primary materials used in composite armor plates!

we offer sintered silicon carbide (SiC) components in various shapes, sizes and configurations to meet demanding conditions in aerospace, chemical production, paper manufacturing and energy technology applications. SiC is known for its excellent abrasion and corrosion resistance as well as thermal shock and wear resistance – qualities which make it suitable for demanding conditions such as aerospace.

SiC can be manufactured through either sintering or reaction bonding processes, with either significantly altering its microstructure and properties at completion. Sintered SiC is made by sintering pure SiC powder with oxide-free sintering aids at high temperatures (2,000degC) in an inert atmosphere using conventional ceramic forming techniques. For reaction bonded SiC, liquid silicon is added into compacts of mixtures composed of both SiC and carbon particles to bond them together into what’s commonly referred to as black silicon carbide.