Silicon carbide (SiC) is an engineering ceramic with exceptional physical and chemical properties. At IPS Ceramics, we offer sintered silicon carbide batts, setters, tubes and beams in sintered silicon carbide (SSiC), designed specifically to meet the rigorous demands of load bearing components in mechanical seals and pump parts operating at temperatures of 1650oC or greater.
SiC is an excellent refractory material, boasting Mohs hardness of 9.5 and Knoop hardness ranging from 2670 kg/mm – second only to diamond, cubic boron nitride, and boron carbide in terms of hardness. Furthermore, SiC also exhibits excellent chemical stability and radiation damage resistance properties.
Hardness
Silicon carbide (SiC) is one of the hardest ceramic materials on the market with a Vickers hardness rating close to diamond’s. Additionally, this resilient and durable ceramic has excellent impact and wear resistance making it suitable for mechanical seals, pump components and other engineering applications that demand chemical stability in their material.
Material features outstanding non-oxide ceramic properties for use at elevated temperatures while still retaining strength and hardness, making it an excellent choice for high performance brake pads for automotive applications.
SiC is known for its superior hardness and low thermal expansion properties, making it the perfect material to form mirrors for astronomical telescopes such as those found on Herschel and Gaia space observatories.
Saint-Gobain Performance Ceramics & Refractories offers Hexoloy(r), an excellent material renowned for its hardness, corrosion resistance, heat tolerance, wear resistance, reliable stopping power while dissipating remaining energy from projectiles. Saint-Gobain Performance Ceramics & Refractories offers Hexoloy(r) sintered SiC materials such as Hexoloy(r) SSiC is produced using fine SiC powder sintered together at high temperatures using protective gas; creating fully dense high performance high performance materials with diamond-hardness hardness with very limited shrinkage. Hexoloy(r) HIPSiC has coarser grain production methods using reaction bonding or hot isostatic pressing processes; Saint-Gobain Performance Ceramics & Refractories offers various industry-trusted Hexoloy(r) sintered SiC materials used for hard armour ballistic protection purposes in vehicles, providing reliable stopping power while absorbing remaining projectile energy of projectile impact energy. Saint-Gobain Performance Ceramics & Refractories offers various Hexoloy(r) sintered SiC materials used widely used by industry-trusted Saint-Gobain Performance Ceramics & Refractories offers various Hexoloy(r) HIPSiC has coarser grain production techniques like reaction bonding or hot isostatic pressing processes depending on application needs.
Thermal Conductivity
Silicon carbide’s exceptional thermal conductivity makes this ceramic an excellent choice for various applications. With its high melting point, resistance to corrosion and low coefficient of expansion it has found favour in mechanical seals, bearings and pump components as well as being used as an abrasive material in shot blast nozzles, pipes and cyclone components.
SiC has an extremely low coefficient of expansion, hardness and rigidity which help it withstand vibrations and impacts, making it popularly used in structural components for ground, air and naval vehicles as well as machinery.
Silicon carbide is an extremely stable material that retains its strength at temperatures up to 1400degC while still remaining chemically inert and resistant to wear, boasting excellent chemical inertia properties as well as being wear-resistent and resistant to wear-and-tear wear. Furthermore, its excellent chemical inertia properties, abrasion resistance and erosion resistance make it suitable for applications including burner nozzles, jet and flame tubes and flue gas desulphurisation tubes – key characteristics required in refractory applications like burner nozzles etc.
Foam ceramics are porous silicon carbides characterized by their uniform three-dimensional network structure, uniform pore distribution, high porosity and small relative density. Foam ceramics find use across many industries including metallurgy, energy production and consumption, electronics transportation machinery national defence as well as production of medical, dental and optical devices as insulators in manufacturing of hearth plates recuperator tubes pusher slabs brick.
Corrosion Resistance
Silicon carbide ceramics possess outstanding corrosion resistance compared to nonoxide ceramics; it stands up well against acid, alkali and molten salts. Furthermore, silicon carbide retains high strength at temperatures up to 1400 deg C while still offering great fatigue resistance and thermal conductivity properties such as low coefficient of expansion. As a result, silicon carbide is widely used in mechanical seal parts, structural ceramics, heat exchangers as well as wear-resistant products such as abrasives.
Silicon carbide’s superior strength, creep resistance and thermal shock resistance makes it one of the key materials used for static hot sections on rockets, airplane engines, automobile engines and gas turbines as well as gas turbines. Refractories also use silicon carbide.
SiC’s remarkable fracture toughness allows it to be used effectively as bulletproof armor material, with only diamond and cubic boron nitride surpassing it for hardness. Military applications for SiC have included testing against 7.62 x 51 mm M993 projectiles impacting at impact velocities of up to 752 meters/second on ceramic targets at impact velocity tests up to 752 meters per second – it showed to have the lowest damage-oriented penetration (DOP).
Saint-Gobain offers silicon carbide products that have become industry standards and excel in numerous challenging manufacturing environments. Granular and powdered silicon carbide is available to be formed into shapes and sizes to meet a range of applications such as insulators, heater plates, susceptors, dummy wafers and focus rings for semiconductor manufacturing – not to mention high temperature furnace components and nuclear-fuel processing equipment.
Wear Resistance
Silicon carbide ceramics offer superior abrasion resistance compared to more commonly used refractory materials like alumina. Furthermore, their mechanical strength can withstand erosion, abrasion and frictional wear even under extreme conditions; furthermore they maintain strength under conditions of oxidation, corrosion or thermal shock as well as having low porosity and an extremely high Young’s modulus making them the perfect material choice for use as burner nozzle refractories or flame tubes in furnaces or flue gas desulphurisation plants as well as many other refractories applications.
Silicon carbide ceramics offer superior mechanical strength and thermal conductivity, and are resistant to acids and alkalis with high creep rupture strengths, making them suitable for applications such as ceramic membranes and vacuum furnaces that operate under aggressive chemical environments with temperatures reaching 1,400 deg C.
DuraShock ceramic composite provides powerful yet weight-saving ballistic protection that makes an excellent combination of hardness and density, combined with the highly advanced DuraShock ceramic formula, providing an effective and resilient defense against ballistic attacks while at the same time providing weight saving advantages – perfect for military vehicles and ships or airport runways.