The effects of repeated point contact loading of hot-pressed and Refel silicon carbides have been investigated.All tests were performed on a purpose-designed and built computer-controlled apparatus (Guillou et al. 1993a,1995).The results clearly indicate that these forms of fully dense SiC are susceptible to cyclic contact loading.The ground tip of either a tool steel or a quenched and tempered silver steel cone was plastically deformed during the initial loading to produce a conforming planar surface approximately 80-100 um m in diameter.In all cases deformation and fracture was observed in the silicon carbides,primarily at the edges of the contact zones.The degree of deformation and fracture increased with increasing number of cycles.
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