Patent ID: 8771585

Claim:
A method for manufacturing ceramic components comprising silicon nitride or sialon or mixtures thereof, with a tailored microstructure by a spark plasma sintering (SPS) procedure in an SPS unit, wherein a powder or pre-formed green body in the SPS unit is treated in a first densification step at a first temperature and a first pressure in order to densify the powder or green body, whereafter the temperature is increased and the pressure is decreased such that the material in the SPS unit is treated in a second grain growth step following the first step at a second temperature which is higher than the first temperature and a second pressure that is lower than the first pressure in order to promote anisotropic grain growth of whisker-like β-silicon nitride and/or β-sialon grains in the component, wherein a holding time of the first densification step is long enough to obtain a density of not less than 97 percent of the theoretical density.