Tungsten Carbide vs. Silicon Nitride
Both tungsten carbide and silicon nitride are non-oxide engineering ceramics. There are 14 material properties with values for both materials. Properties with values for just one material (8, 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 tungsten carbide and the bottom bar is silicon nitride.
Metric UnitsUS Customary Units
Mechanical Properties
| Compressive (Crushing) Strength, MPa | 4780 | |
| 600 to 2950 |
| Elastic (Young's, Tensile) Modulus, GPa | 630 | |
| 140 to 310 |
| Flexural Strength, MPa | 1830 | |
| 130 to 810 |
| Fracture Toughness, MPa-m1/2 | 12 | |
| 3.1 to 6.2 |
| Poisson's Ratio | 0.24 | |
| 0.24 to 0.27 |
Thermal Properties
| Maximum Temperature: Mechanical, °C | 1000 | |
| 1000 to 1330 |
| Specific Heat Capacity, J/kg-K | 280 | |
| 720 to 800 |
| Thermal Conductivity, W/m-K | 85 | |
| 12 to 31 |
| Thermal Expansion, µm/m-K | 5.4 | |
| 2.5 to 3.2 |
Electrical Properties
| Electrical Resistivity Order of Magnitude, 10x Ω-m | 0.75 | |
| 11 to 12 |
Otherwise Unclassified Properties
| Density, g/cm3 | 15 | |
| 2.2 to 3.4 |
Common Calculations
| Stiffness to Weight: Axial, points | 24 | |
| 34 to 53 |
| Stiffness to Weight: Bending, points | 20 | |
| 65 to 78 |
| Thermal Diffusivity, mm2/s | 21 | |
| 7.5 to 13 |