Investigation of Mechanical Property and Thermal Shock Behavior of Machinable B<sub>4</sub>C/BN Ceramics Composites

Abstract

The machinable B4C/BN ceramics composites were fabricated by hot-pressing sintering process at 1850oC for 1h under the pressure of 30MPa. The mechanical property, thermal shock behavior and machinability of the B4C/BN ceramics composites were investigated in this article. The experimental results showed that the fracture strength and fracture toughness of the B4C/BN nanocomposites were significantly improved in comparison with the B4C/BN microcomposites. The Vickers hardness of the B4C/BN nanocomposites and B4C/BN microcomposites decreased gradually with the increasing content of h-BN, while the machinability of the B4C/BN nanocomposites and B4C/BN microcomposites were significantly improved. The B4C/BN ceramics composites with the h-BN content more than 20wt% exhibited excellent machinability. The thermal shock resistances of the B4C/BN ceramics composites were better than that of the B4C monolith, and the thermal shock resistance of the B4C/BN nanocomposites was much better than that of the B4C/BN microcomposites. The thermal shock temperature difference (-Tc) of B4C monolith was about 300oC, while the -Tc of the B4C/BN microcomposites was about 500oC, the -Tc of the B4C/BN nanocomposites was about 600oC.