Investigation of Physical and Mechanical Properties and Microstructure of Ceramics Based on Zirconium Carbide and Nitride

The physico-mechanical properties of ceramics based on carbide and zirconium nitride, sintered by hot pressing at a temperature of 2000 ℃, a pressure of 30 MPa and a holding time of 15 min, are investigated in this work. The granulometric composition of zirconium carbide and nitride powders was determined by the sieve method and the microscopic secant method. When using the indentation methods implemented on the PMT-3 device, the hardness of the studied ceramics was determined by Vickers and their stress intensity coefficients were measured. Using analytical methods and the rule of additivity, the data necessary to determine the porosity of the samples were obtained. Micrographs of sample surfaces in topographic and compositional mode were prepared using scanning electron microscopy.