Silicon Carbide Ceramic Plates are flat parts used as wear plates, insulating barriers, substrate blanks, heat spreaders and precision reference surfaces.
Silicon carbide plates serve as kiln furniture, burner plates and wear liners above 1200°C. The combination of high conductivity and low expansion lets a plate take direct flame on one face without warping or cracking.
Silicon carbide is chosen when a part must survive abrasion, high temperature and thermal shock at the same time. Hardness reaches 2200-2500 HV, thermal conductivity of 120-200 W/m·K is several times that of steel, and expansion of 4.0 ×10⁻⁶/K keeps it in shape through fast temperature swings.
It is brittle and electrically semiconducting, so it is not used where electrical isolation matters, and its hardness makes diamond grinding the only practical finishing route.
Specifications
| Maximum size | up to 400×400 mm |
| Thickness | 0.3-30 mm |
| Flatness | 0.005 mm per 100 mm |
| Parallelism | 0.01 mm |
| Surface finish | Ra 0.4 µm ground, Ra 0.2 µm lapped |
| Holes and slots | ground, drilled or laser cut |
| Edges | square, chamfered or radiused |
Silicon Carbide Properties
| Composition | Sintered silicon carbide (SSiC) |
| Density | 3.10-3.15 g/cm³ |
| Vickers hardness | 2200-2500 HV |
| Flexural strength | 400-500 MPa |
| Fracture toughness | 3-4 MPa·m½ |
| Max. service temperature | 1400°C in air (1600°C inert) |
| Thermal conductivity | 120-200 W/m·K |
| Thermal expansion (20-1000°C) | 4.0 ×10⁻⁶/K |
Machining and Tolerances
Plates are pressed or tape cast, fired, then surface ground and lapped. Thin large plates are the most likely to warp, so material is removed in equal amounts from both faces to keep the stress balanced, and grinding is followed by a relaxation step before the final passes.
Where It Is Used
- Wear plates and chute liners in bulk handling
- Electrical insulation barriers in switchgear and heaters
- Hot platens and press tooling in electronics manufacturing
- Vacuum chuck and metering surfaces in semiconductor equipment
- Precision reference and gauge blocks in metrology
Frequently Asked Questions
How flat can a large ceramic plate be held?
0.005 mm per 100 mm is the working standard for lapped plates. Larger areas are harder, and above 300×300 mm we generally specify flatness over a defined area rather than across the whole plate.
Will it warp when I bolt it down?
It can. A plate that is flat when unclamped will follow a distorted mounting face, so we recommend a relieved or lapped mounting surface, evenly torqued fixings and a compliant interlayer.