Combustion Synthesis of TiC Particle Dispersed Metal Matrix FGM Composites

Abstract

FeAl‐TiC and Fe‐TiC pseudo binary FGM composite alloys have been combustion synthesized from mixtures of the elementary powders. When the powder mixture was heated in an argon atmosphere to approximately 900 K, an abrupt increase in temperature was observed, indicating that the combustion synthesis reactions occurred in the powder mixture. XRD analyses revealed that the combustion‐synthesized samples consisted of only FeAl and TiC or only Fe and TiC, depending on the pseudo binary system. SEM observations and EPMA examinations revealed that TiC particles were distributed in FeAl or Fe matrix phases. As the volume fraction of the TiC particles increased from 0.3 to 0.9, the average particle diameter increased from approximately 1 to 7 micro meters and the Vickers hardness of the sample increased from 800 to 2500. This method has been applied to the fabrication of some other ceramic particle dispersed metal matrix composites such as FeAl‐TiB2 and Fe‐TiB2 pseudo binary systems.