An Experimental Plan for the Nitridation of Si+Al Compacts

Abstract

This work attempts to approach the nitridation process for silicon-6^W/O aluminium powder compacts using an experimental plan called the “Latin square”. This plan brings out the respective influence of each parameter of the process through a limited number of experiments. Here, we took into account the following independent parameters:

• nitriding temperature

• nitriding time

• nitrogen flow in the furnace

• chemical nature of the Si starting powder

• density of the compacts before nitridation.

By considering the nitridation rate to be an independent variable function of the five process parameters, thus neglecting any interaction between them, it was shown that two parameters had a major influence: nitriding temperature, and the chemical nature of the starting powder.