Impact Damage and Strength Degradation in a Silicon Carbide Reinforced Silicon Nitride Composite

Adding SiC particles to Si3N4 and subjecting the mixture to a sinter‐hot‐isostatic‐pressing process increases both the strength and elastic modulus. It also decreases the hardness but maintains the fracture toughness, which results in a higher resistance to crack initiation and propagation during spherical particle impact. Sinter‐hot‐isostatically‐pressed composites exhibit elastic response as their dominant behavior. They also display a high resistance to Hertzian cone crack initiation and extension. This is due to the increased degree of inelastic deformation of sinter‐hot‐isostatically‐pressed composites.