Reinforceable sintered glass-ceramics

摘要

A fibre-reinforced ceramic material is made by making a melt of glass of specified composition, cooling the melt rapidly enough for it to solidify as a glass, crushing the glass to a particle size not exceeding 70 mu m but preferably not exceeding 50 mu m mixing the powder with reinforcing fibres and heat-treating the mixture, preferably under pressure. The glass composition is: 100 parts by weight of base glass (0-30 CaO, 0-30 MgO, 5-35 Al2O3, and 35-75 SiO2) plus 1/2-3 parts Cr2O3 plus 1/2-10 parts of Fe2O3 or the equivalent. This ensures the ceramic contains both surface-nucleated and internally-nucleated crystals, enhancing its properties.