The focus of the research work at SCI will be to improve the thermal conductivity without such seeding and tape casting. Minimizing this oxygen impurity in the grains leads to increased thermal conductivity. Crystallization of the glass phase present, and more importantly as thin glass films as possible at the grain boundaries, are positive to obtaining high thermal conductivity. Thus the second way to increase the thermal conductivity would be to control the composition as well as the distribution, shape and thickness of the glass phase. N 4 will result in an isotropic microstructure consisting of larger crystals.
Larger crystals mean fewer grain boundaries that lower the thermal conductivity.
The seeding and annealing procedure is very expensive. To find a more price-competitive material for the industry, we will concentrate our research on the possibility of increasing the thermal conductivity of silicon nitride by minimizing the solid solute oxygen in the silicon nitride grains and minimizing the thickness of the glass phase at grain boundaries. The precise direction of this work will be discussed with interested students and will depend on starting date. The thesis should result in optimised process parameters for the manufacture of titanium products using the PM technique. This demands a wide range of pressing and sintering studies.