Effect of VC addition on sinterability and microstructure of ultrafine Ti(C, N)-based cermets in spark plasma sintering

Effect of VC addition on the microstructure and properties of Ti(C,N)-based nano cermets

“…Thereby, the grain growth is inhibited by the decrease of grains grown driver force, which is corresponded well with Ref. [15]. However, more excessive addition of VC cannot result in finer grain [20].…”

“…However, with the increase of VC content, as in cermets D and E, a lot of gray cores are appeared. Since VC interferes with the dissolution-reprecipitation step [15], the dissolution of the gray cores into the binder is inhibited. As a result, the number of gray cores increases with the increasing VC addition.…”

“…This may be because cermet D has the finest grains and a more homogeneous structure to enhance solid-state densification [22]. The influence of VC on the sinterability of Ti(C,N)-based nano cermets is slighter than that of ultrafine Ti(C,N)-based cermets [15]. It can be obviously seen that the hardness values and fracture toughness of the VC-doped cermets are higher than those of the cermets without VC addition, as shown in Figs.…”

“…Among the various grain growth inhibitors (VC, Cr 3 C 2 , TaC, NbC), VC, by virtue of its chemical nature and high mobility even during the solid-state sintering, had been proved to be by far the most effective and reliable inhibitor in WC-Ni and WC-Co alloys [12][13][14]. Researchers also demonstrated that VC could effectively inhibit the grain growth of micrometer grade and ultrafine Ti(C,N)-based cermets [15][16]. However, few researches have been reported on the effect of VC addition in Ti(C,N)-based nano cermets.…”

Wear behavior and microhardness of some W/Cu functionally graded materials obtained by spark plasma sintering

“…The main fields of applications of W/Cu FGM are: electrical contacts, plasma facing materials, heat sink materials, etc. [21] In recent decades, Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) became a popular sintering method which is widely used in fabrication process of different materials as: ceramics, cermets, metals, hard materials, composite materials and FGMs [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. The SPS process is different by conventional sintering in that, the cold pre-pressed powder is sintered by discharge impact, spark plasma, Joule heat and intrinsic field effects produced by additional strong pulse currents through the powders.…”