Indentation crack length anisotropy in silicon nitride with aligned reinforcing grains

Vickers indentation was performed on surfaces of silicon nitride with an aligned microstructure in order to study the interaction between cracks and the microstructure, Although there was not much evidence of crack bridging, the transverse radial cracks were very short, resulting in high fracture toughness values. The longitudinal radial cracks tended to propagate along the grain boundary of the reinforcements and were much longer than the transverse cracks. As the sintering temperature increased, the lateral cracks on the casting surface led to spalling and consumed more energy for the crack formation, making the longitudinal cracks shorter. On the surface normal to the alignment direction, there was no spalling and the indentation cracks became longer as the sintering temperature increased.