Accepted: 06.03.2013

The paper deals with the flexural strength measurement and characterization of fracture origins of the silicon carbide materials prepared by liquid-phase-sintering. The characteristic flexural strength and Weibull´s modulus were computed using two-parameter Weibull´s distribution. Fractographic analysis of broken specimens was used to characterize the processing flaws. The strength of the investigated materials was degraded by the presence of processing flaws mainly in the form of pores, cluster of pores, silicon carbide agglomerates and sharp cracks. The fracture initiation sites are located predominantly in the volume of the specimens, sometimes close to the tensile surface. The size of fracture origins was lying in the interval from 15 µm to 400 µm