Ceramic‐Metal Composite Produced by Melt Infiltration

Abstract

A new ceramic‐metal composite with continuous interconnected ceramic and metal phases has been fabricated from sintered aluminum nitride infiltrated with aluminum metal. A dense, lightweight, hard material with high strength has been obtained. Advance of the infiltration front was linear with time. The activation energy of the process was very high (330 kJ/mol), suggesting that a chemical interaction rather than viscous flow was rate‐controlling. The infiltration rate was observed to be inversely proportional to the pore size. Thermal and mechanical properties of the composite were promising.