Abstract
Gas pressure sintering is a promising process in various densification methods of high strength Si3N4 ceramics. Environmental influences on gas pressure sintering of Si3N4 was investigated with the variationof packing powder, specimen container and N2 gas pressure. The specimens had higher density, larger weight loss and inhomogeneous color in graphite specimen container than in SN26 crucible. The variations of sintering densities in various packing powders (Si3N4, SN26, AlN, BN) were very small but SiC powder was synthesised in graphite crucible with Si3N4 packing powder, aluminium oxynitride compounds were synthesised in SN26 crucible with AlN packing power. Also N2 gas pressure over 20kg/$\textrm{cm}^2$ reduced the densification of Si3N4 in one step-gas pressure sintering. As the result of two step-gas pressure sintering at 700kg/$\textrm{cm}^2$ for 15min., relative density of 99.9% and 3-point bending strength of 1090MPa and dense microstructure of 3~4${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ grain size were obtained.
