Boron Carbide vs. Tungsten Carbide
Both boron carbide and tungsten carbide are non-oxide engineering ceramics. There are 19 material properties with values for both materials. Properties with values for just one material (1, in this case) are not shown. Please note that the two materials have significantly dissimilar densities. This means that additional care is required when interpreting the data, because some material properties are based on units of mass, while others are based on units of area or volume.
For each property being compared, the top bar is boron carbide and the bottom bar is tungsten carbide.
Metric UnitsUS Customary Units
Mechanical Properties
| Compressive (Crushing) Strength, MPa | 1710 to 2200 | |
| 4780 |
| Elastic (Young's, Tensile) Modulus, GPa | 240 to 460 | |
| 630 |
| Flexural Strength, MPa | 170 to 410 | |
| 1830 |
| Fracture Toughness, MPa-m1/2 | 2.5 to 3.5 | |
| 12 |
| Knoop Hardness | 2600 to 3200 | |
| 1670 |
| Poisson's Ratio | 0.17 to 0.19 | |
| 0.24 |
| Tensile Strength: Ultimate (UTS), MPa | 350 | |
| 350 |
Thermal Properties
| Maximum Temperature: Mechanical, °C | 1000 to 2500 | |
| 1000 |
| Specific Heat Capacity, J/kg-K | 950 | |
| 280 |
| Thermal Conductivity, W/m-K | 31 to 90 | |
| 85 |
| Thermal Expansion, µm/m-K | 4.5 to 5.6 | |
| 5.4 |
Electrical Properties
| Electrical Resistivity Order of Magnitude, 10x Ω-m | 0 to 11 | |
| 0.75 |
Otherwise Unclassified Properties
| Density, g/cm3 | 2.1 to 2.7 | |
| 15 |
Common Calculations
| Stiffness to Weight: Axial, points | 63 to 100 | |
| 24 |
| Stiffness to Weight: Bending, points | 91 to 100 | |
| 20 |
| Strength to Weight: Axial, points | 37 to 47 | |
| 6.6 |
| Strength to Weight: Bending, points | 42 to 53 | |
| 7.5 |
| Thermal Diffusivity, mm2/s | 16 to 38 | |
| 21 |
| Thermal Shock Resistance, points | 9.7 to 20 | |
| 7.2 |