A SILICON NITRIDE REFERENCE MATERIAL FOR CERAMIC DESIGN T. Lube * , J. Alcala ‡ , J. Dusza § , H. Klemm † * Institut für Struktur- und Funktionskeramik, Montanuniversität Leoben, A-8700 Leoben, AUSTRIA ‡ Departament de Ciència dels Materials i Enginyeria, Universitad Politècnica de Catalunya, E-08028 Barcelona, SPAIN § Institute of Materials Research, Slovak Academy of Sciences, SK-04001 Košice, SLOVAKIA † Fraunhofer Institut für Keramische Technologien und Sinterwerkstoffe, D-01277 Dresden, GERMANY ABSTRACT A research program organised by the Technical Committee 6 "Ceramics" of the European Structural Integrity Society (ESIS) is presented. A complete set of material properties and data required for design will be measured for a commercially available silicon nitride ceramic. The data set will comprise relevant strength and crack extension parameters as well as cyclic fatigue data at room and also at elevated temperatures. Results related with contact and wear responses will be presented. 1 INTRODUCTION Research efforts in the development of structural ceramics resulted in greatly improved performance of these materials. Also, concepts and tools for a reliable design of ceramic components are now available Nemeth et al. [1], Brückner-Foit et al. [2]. Nevertheless, the idea of using a brittle and, therefore, "unreliable" material for structural parts continues to be an unacceptable strategy from the materials selection point of view. Several simple design-studies exist, that use 'typical material properties' – especially for time or cycle dependent properties - to prove the principal suitability of ceramics in many applications, Hempel et al. [3]. These studies demonstrate the crucial influence of these properties on the long- term reliability of components. However, for most commercial ceramics data that characterise these properties are not available. A consequence of this lack of data is a lack of examples for appropriate ceramic design, Rubeša et al. [4]. The aim of this paper is to introduce the 'R eference M aterial T esting P rogram' (RMTP) carried out by the Technical Committee 6 "Ceramics" of the European Structural Integrity Society (ESIS). The following sections provide a brief description of the concept and of the working tasks. The state of the program together with some selected results is reported. Such a set of data could be the basis for detailed design studies and provide a baseline for material development.. 2 DESCRIPTION OF THE TESTING PROGRAM 2.1 Investigated Material A material that may perform reasonable in a large number of possible applications is chosen for the project to ensure a fair comparison with alternative ceramics. A candidate structural ceramic for the RMTP should therefore be applicable at ambient temperature as well as above 1000°C and have a fracture toughness higher than 5 MPa√m. It should be commercially available from a large European producer and the production should have reached a stable (reproducible) quality. The existence of the material should be assured for several more years. The material chosen as the ESIS Silicon Nitride Reference Material is produced by CeramTec (Plochingen, Germany) under the name SL200 B. It is a gas pressure sintered ceramic containing