In situ monitoring and depth-resolved characterization of wet wear of silicon carbide

Wear of ceramic materials is a complex process and requires characterization methods capable of resolving the complexity of the degradation mechanisms in both time and spatial resolution. In this study, we investigated wet wear of silicon carbide (SiC) ceramics by means of depth-resolving electron microscopy, nanoindentation, and Raman spectroscopy. While these methods allow us to address changes in microstructure and chemistry, additional information on subsurface effects are gained (e.g., indentation modulus and hardness). Here, we see a decrease in elastic modulus and increase in indentation hardness leading to an improved H/E ratio beneficial to the overall wear performance. In addition to post mortem analysis, we present first data of online monitoring the wear loss. This was realized by constantly analyzing the Si concentration of water via optical emission spectrometry. A linear mass loss was found after an initial run-in phase.