B4C-TiB2 Composite Ceramics with Ultra-High Fracture Toughness Fabricated by Spark Plasma Sintering

Abstract

B4C-TiB2 composite ceramics with ultra-high fracture toughness were successfully prepared via spark plasma sintering using B4C and 30 vol.% Ti3SiC2 as raw materials at different sintering temperatures. The results show that compared with pure B4C ceramics sintered by SPS, the flexural strength and fracture toughness are significantly improved, especially the fracture toughness has been improved by leaps and bounds. When the sintering temperature is 1900 ℃, the B4C-TiB2 composite ceramic has the best comprehensive mechanical properties: hardness, bending strength and fracture toughness are 27.28 GPa, 405.11 MPa and 18.94 MPa·m1/2, respectively. The main two reasons for the ultra-high fracture toughness are the formation of TiB2 three-dimensional network covering the whole composites, and the existence of lamellar graphite at the grain boundary.