High-temperature plastic deformation of spark plasma sintered boron carbide-based composites: The case study of B4C–SiC with/without graphite (g)

B4C-based composites are considered to be a practical option in order to overcome the major limitation of pure boron carbide ceramics, their poor sinterability, without a major degradation of mechanical properties. This work is focused on the analysis and comparison of the high-temperature creep of silicon carbide-reinforced B4C composites sintered with or without graphite. The mechanical tests, together with microstructural characterization, will allow clarifying the micromechanisms into play and will give insight into the capability of these composites to optimise the mechanical resistance of these materials. The results have shown that the presence of graphite plays a key role on the plasticity of B4C-based composites. In the absence of graphite, silicon carbide-reinforced B4C composites have similar plastic behaviour as pure boron carbide polycrystalline ceramics.