Abstract
Abstract B4C ceramics were fabricated by spark plasma sintering with 5% (Ti3SiC2+Si) as sintering aid. The effects of sintering temperatures and sintering aid on microstructures and properties of B4C ceramics were investigated. The results indicated that the addition of a small amount of (Ti3SiC2+Si) could effectively improve the sintering characteristic of B4C ceramics and reduce the sintering temperature. The as-sintered ceramics fabricated at 1700 °C exhibited excellent mechanical properties, including a super-high Vickers hardness of 38.4 GPa, a high flexural strength of 457.6 MPa and a good fracture toughness of 5.61 MPa m0.5. Following reasons may be responsible for the improvement of the hardness of B4C ceramics: high relative density due to the combination use of (Ti3SiC2+Si) sintering aids and SPS technology, fine-grained structure of the B4C ceramics benefited from the low sintering temperature, formation of the second phases TiB2 and SiC by chemical reaction and existence of the nano-sized unit of (TiB2+SiC) in B4C grains.
Published Version
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