Improved creep resistance in anisotropic silicon nitride

Tensile creep behavior of silicon nitride with aligned rodlike grains (anisotropic silicon nitride), fabricated by superplastic forging, was investigated at elevated temperatures. Creep rate of the anisotropic silicon nitride was about 1 order of magnitude lower than that of the isotropic one (without forging). The stress sensitivities for the isotropic and anisotropic specimens at 1200 °C were 2.1 and 2.6, respectively, and that for the anisotropic specimen at 1250 °C was 3.6. The grain alignment should cause a remarkable improvement in the creep resistance when a tensile stress is applied along the alignment direction.