Critical review on the elastic properties of transition metal carbides, nitrides and carbonitrides

Presently available data on the elastic properties of transition metal carbides, nitrides and carbonitrides are critically reviewed. It is shown that a lot of information is available on binary systems, but the scatter of the data is quite large, due to different sample preparation methods, different measurement and evaluation methods and insufficient chemical and microstructural characterization of the materials studied. Furthermore, experimental data were used to compare the evaluation methods for Young's modulus as a function of the sample porosity. Only few data are available for ternary and quaternary systems. For the nitrides the elastic constants were determined almost entirely at room temperature only, although the compounds are frequently used at much higher temperatures. Information about the temperature dependency of the carbides is scarce. Therefore, it is obvious that for the design and tailoring of composites additional research work is necessary. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A.