Sintering Behavior of Spark Plasma Sintered SiC with Si-SiC Composite Nanoparticles Prepared by Thermal DC Plasma Process

Table 1 Composition of micron-sized SiC and nano-sized Si-SiC composite particle, temperature, and pressure for preparing sintered SiC pellets and their relative densities and Vicker’s hardness

Sample	Composition (wt%)		Temp. (°C)	Holding time (min)	Pressure (MPa)	Relative density (%)	Vicker’s hardness (GPa)
Sample	Micron-sized SiC	Nano-sized Si-SiC	Temp. (°C)	Holding time (min)	Pressure (MPa)	Relative density (%)	Vicker’s hardness (GPa)
a	90	10	1600	0	80	78.7	9.8
b	90	10	1700	0	80	86.1	14.8
c	90	10	1800	0	80	87.4	18.6
d	90	10	1800	1	80	88.2	21.2