U.S.-Germany Cooperative Research on the Heat- Resistant Active Brazing of Silicon-Nitride

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This award supports Professor J. E. Indacochea and a graduate student of the University of Illinois at Chicago to collaborate in materials engineering research with Professor Erich Lugscheider and others of the Materials Science Institute of the Technical University of Aachen, Germany. The objectives of their joint research are to improve the technological processes involved in bonding non-oxide ceramics at elevated temperatures and in otherwise hostile environments. In particular, they plan to develop a filler material and define a joining procedure to bond silicon nitride. They will evaluate three techniques for ease of fabrication and the stability of the ceramic joint. In order to capitalize on the technological benefits of high performance ceramics and composite materials, it is necessary to provide adequate techniques for joining these materials to other substances. This collaborative research takes advantage of the German group's technological expertise in alloy design, process design and optimization. It is enhanced by their valuable European industrial partnerships, which give them access to industrial mass production equipment. The U.S. group has easy access to necessary microscopic, analytical and computing facilities, and it has expertise in microstructure evaluations and phase transformations which complement the German expertise. The results of their joint effort are expected to produce a data base and model that could design the filler material and identify an effective joining process based on specifications of substrate, temperature levels and service environment for the bonding.