About Silicon Carbide
Silicon Carbide (SiC) is a crystalline material made from a stable combination of the elements carbon and silicon. It has high temperature stability, high hardness and corrosion resistance. These characteristics make silicon carbide has important application value in many fields, especially in energy, electronics, semiconductor, smart grid, photo voltaic inverter, ceramics and coatings. Silicon carbide materials are widely used and have great market potential.
In recent years, SiC plays an important role in the semiconductor industry. As a multifunctional material, SiC drives innovation and development in many areas.
Silicon carbide bricks are refractory products made of silicon carbide as the main raw material. General selection of black silicon carbide (SiC content of 96% or more) as raw materials, adding binding agent (or no binding agent), through the batching, mixing, molding and firing process. It has the characteristics of good abrasion and erosion resistance, high temperature strength, good thermal shock stability, high thermal conductivity, small thermal expansion coefficient, etc. It is a high-performance refractory material.
Characteristic & Application Field of Silicon Carbide
Silicon carbide bricks are a very important refractory material with many applications. In industry, silicon carbide bricks are widely used in the construction of high-temperature kilns, smelting furnaces, crucibles and other refractory components. Silicon carbide bricks have excellent resistance to high temperatures and can withstand thermal stresses and thermal shocks at very high temperatures, making them very reliable for use in high temperature environments.
About the Workpiece
Our customer is a Chinese company specializing in the research, development, manufacturing, sales and service of high-efficiency solar cells. The company is committed to providing customers with high-performance, high-reliability, high-efficiency solar cell products that meet the IEC double standard. And the high-efficiency solar cell products are made of silicon carbide as an important raw material. The customer asked us to measure the thickness of the silicon carbide bricks to assist ultrasonic flaw detection to determine if there are any cracks in the internal materials.
Measurement Analysis
In order to realize accurate measurement and observe the real-time waveform of A-scan, we choose PM5 Gen2 with C5M13 probe for measurement. This is because the measurement sample is thicker and the contact surface is rougher, so a low-frequency contact probe is chosen to minimize attenuation and achieve good penetration results. Because silicon carbide has only one bottom echo, we use the P-E (Pulse-Echo) measurement mode.
Measurement Results
When the contact probe is well coupled to the part under test and the pulse echo emitted by the transducer can be reflected back by the bottom surface, the PM5 Gen2 high-precision ultrasonic thickness gauge will clearly show the echo waveform and the thickness value of the silicon carbide brick, which means that there is no crack defect directly below the measured area.
On the other hand, if the PM5 Gen2 does not show waveforms and thickness values then the instrument has detected an internal crack and a flaw detector is required to confirm the exact location, depth and dimension.
Ultrasonic thickness gauges measure material thickness quickly, easily and accurately, and are the primary means and method of controlling product quality. If you would like to learn more about using ultrasonic technology to measure the thickness of similar products, or if you have a problem with a measurement application, you can contact us to send a sample for testing and we will provide you with a solution.