Spark plasma sintered TiB2-SiC UHTC derived from B4C and stoichiometric intermetallic phases from Ti-Si system

Abstract

Previously conducted studies determined that the reactive sintering of B4C and stoichiometric additions of TiSi2 or Ti5Si3 intermetallics created a dense TiB2-SiC double-phase system that could be classified as ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTC). In this work, a spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique was used to improve the sintering process and thus further reduce the obtaining temperature and improve the final microstructure and mechanical properties of the proposed, double-phase TiB2-SiC UHTC systems. To evaluate the effects of the experiment, a comprehensive study of phase composition, microstructure and mechanical properties was added. As a result, minimal sintering temperatures were further reduced from 1420 - 1650 ºC to a range of 1200–1400 ºC. Among the prepared composites those sintered at 1400 ºC achieved the best properties. The prepared composites maintained high hardness (up to 24.85 GPa), high tensile strength (up to 309 GPa), relatively high fracture toughness (up to 4.80 MPa∙m1/2) and relatively low density, all of which characterized TiB2-SiC UHTC systems.