Aluminum nitride (ain) a high thermal conductivity electrical insulator, has gained acceptance in the electronics industry as a substitute material for aluminum oxide and bryllium oxide as heat sink substrates and in multilayer packages. Aluminum nitride is also a very chemically inert, resistant material at high temperatures. Potential uses range from immersion heater protection tubes for the aluminum die cast industry ot copper vapor laser tubes. The majority of corrosion resistant applications require large, structurally reliable parts, as compared to the available electronic grades of ain. This project will investigate the principles required to produce large statistically reliable structural shapes of ain through in-process statisticalcontrol using novel low-cost furnacing concepts. In phase i, test billets of ain will be fabricated and characterized by measuring the modulus of rupture, weibull modulus, density, microhardness, fracture toughness, and thermal conductivity, and the microstructural uniformitywill be determined using optical and scanning electron micrography.
