It has already been clarified in the authors' previous study on Si
3N
4-10 mol%MgO-5.5 mol%Al
2O
3 ceramics that the annealing at about 1370 K caused a sharp decrease in the strength of ceramics with the formation of MgSiO
3. In this study, the effects of contents of MgO (7-20 mol%) and Al
2O
3 (3.5-9.5 mol%) and additional amount of SiO
2 (1-3 moloo) on the formation of MgSiO
3 and the change in the strength due to the annealing were investigated.
It was found that the increasing of MgO content and decreasings of Al
2O
3 and SiO
2 contents depressed the formation of MgSiO
3. In particular, the increasing of MgO content was most effective and the formation of MgSiO
3 was completely inhibited at about 20 mol%MgO. In accordance with this, the strength of ceramics with 20 mol%MgO was hardly varied by the annealing. Some discussions were made on these results, using MgO-Al
2O
3-SiO
2 psuedo-ternary phase diagram.
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