A high temperature dilatometer attached to a graphite furnace is built and used to study the sintering behavior of B4C. Pristine and carbon doped B4C compacts are sintered at various soaking temperatures and their shrinkage profiles are detected simultaneously using the dilatometer. Carbon additions enhance the sinterability of B4C with sintering to more than 97% of the theoretical density, while pristine B4C compacts could not be sintered above 91% due to particle coarsening. The shrinkage profiles of B4C reveal that the effect of carbon on the sinterability of B4C can be seen mostly below 1950°C. The high temperature dilatometer delivers very useful information which is impossible to obtain with conventional furnaces.
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