Thermal Expansion of Sintered Glass Ceramics in the System BaO–SrO–ZnO–SiO₂ and Its Dependence on Particle Size

The thermal expansion behavior of sintered glass-ceramics containing high concentrations of Ba1-xSrxZn2Si2O7, a phase with very low and highly anisotropic thermal expansion behavior, was investigated. The observed phase has the crystal structure of the high-temperature phase of BaZn2Si2O7, which can be stabilized by the introduction of Sr(2+) into this phase. The high anisotropy leads to microcracking within the volume of the samples, which strongly affects the dilatometric thermal expansion. However, these cracks also have an influence on the nominal thermal expansion of the as-mentioned phase, which decreases if the cracks appear. Below a grain size of approximately 80 μm, the sintered glass-ceramics have almost no cracks and show positive thermal expansion. Hence, coefficients of thermal expansion between -5.6 and 6.5 × 10(-6) K(-1) were measured. In addition to dilatometric studies, the effect of the microstructure on the thermal expansion was also measured using in situ X-ray diffraction at temperatures up to 1000 °C.