Highly creep-resistant alumina–SiC nanocomposites processed by spark plasma sintering

In this work, spark plasma sintering is successfully applied to prepare alumina–5 vol.% SiC micronanocomposites with almost completely intergranular microstructure. The creep behaviour of these materials is examined at 1200 °C under stresses ranging from 90 to 140 MPa. It is shown experimentally that the creep deformation process is controlled through a lattice-dislocation mechanism and that an efficient way to further improve the alumina creep resistance is to reduce the SiC particle size.