Fabrication of SiCw/Ti3SiC2 composites with improved thermal conductivity and mechanical properties using spark plasma sintering

Xiaobing Zhou,Dang-Hyok Yoon,Jaehyung Lee,Lei Jing,Qing Huang,Jin-Young Kim,Zhengren Huang,Yong Duk Kwon

doi:10.1007/s40145-020-0389-2

Abstract

High strength SiC whisker-reinforced Ti3SiC2 composites (SiCw/Ti3SiC2) with an improved thermal conductivity and mechanical properties were fabricated by spark plasma sintering. The bending strength of 10 wt% SiCw/Ti3SiC2 was 635 MPa, which was approximately 50% higher than that of the monolithic Ti3SiC2 (428 MPa). The Vickers hardness and thermal conductivity (k) also increased by 36% and 25%, respectively, from the monolithic Ti3SiC2 by the incorporation of 10 wt% SiCw. This remarkable improvement both in mechanical and thermal properties was attributed to the fine-grained uniform composite microstructure along with the effects of incorporated SiCw. The SiCw/Ti3SiC2 can be a feasible candidate for the in-core structural application in nuclear reactors due to the excellent mechanical and thermal properties.

Highlights

Ti3SiC2 is a typical MAX phase material (M: early transition metal, A: group A element, and X: C or N), which was developed in 1967 [1]
Because the zeta potential of Ti3SiC2 (25 mV) was similar to that of SiC whisker (SiCw) without PEI at pH = 3, firstly SiCw was dispersed in water after adding 1.5 wt% PEI, and the Ti3SiC2 powder was added followed by the pH adjustment to 3 to obtain the uniform dispersion of SiCw and Ti3SiC2
The strengths of the composites containing up to 5 wt% SiCw remained at a similar level as that of the monolithic Ti3SiC2

Summary

Introduction

Ti3SiC2 is a typical MAX phase material (M: early transition metal, A: group A element, and X: C or N), which was developed in 1967 [1]. Because SiC is thermodynamically stable along with excellent mechanical properties and high k [9,10,11,12,13], the Ti3SiC2 reinforced with SiC particles has attracted much attention [14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22]. It was reported that the Vickers hardness, fracture toughness, k, and oxidation resistance of Ti3SiC2 could be improved by the addition of SiC particles [14,15,16].

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