HardnessStrength
Hardness
One of the most valuable characteristics of advanced ceramics in high-performance applications is their extreme hardness. Ultra Hard ceramic materials have been utilised to enhance the performance of ballistic armour , where many grades are used in multiple applications from body amour to vehicle and helicopter armour . The use of wear parts to replace steel components in pumps , motor vehicles and valves has increased extending component lifetimes.There are two materials which are only surpassed by diamond in terms of hardness – Boron Carbide (B4C) and Silicon Carbide (SiC). Precision Ceramics DuraWear™ a Boron Carbide based composite ceramics and Durashock™ a Boron Carbide/Silicon Carbide ceramic composite are extremely hard and only available at Precision Ceramics.
Materials Ranked by Hardness
In terms of hardness, between DuraWear™ and Durashock™ there’s not much to choose between them but each has its own specific advantages in terms of properties and applications. This is followed by Silicon Carbide (SiC), one of the lightest, hardest and strongest advanced ceramics.
Related Properties
Compressive strength
Compressive strength is the capacity of a material to withstand loadstending to reduce size. Explained differently, compressive strength resistscompression (being pushed together), whereas tensile strength resiststension (being pulled apart).
Density
Density is the mass of a material per unit volume. The unit ofmeasurement can be expressed in different ways and is referred us asg/cm3 but another measurement value is kg/m3.
Fracture Toughness
The ability to resist fracture is a mechanical property of materials knownas fracture toughness, For advanced ceramics it uses a critical stressintensity factor known as KlC where the fracture normally occurs at thecrack terminations.