Effect of mechanical alloying on sinterability and phase evolution in pressure-less sintered TiB_(2)-TiC ceramics

Phase relation and microstructure evolution in the pressure-less sintered TiB_(2)‒TiC ceramics preceded with mechanical alloying were systematically studied by a combination of SEM analysis.WC debris from milling balls promotes sintering by dissolving into the TiC phase to achieve dense microstructures at 1600℃.Variation of W solution in TiC grains exposes two types of core-rim structures,with no or more W in dark and white cores respectively but with common medium W in both rims.Diminishing whitecores reveal an exchange reaction between WC and TiC via mechanical alloying to form the Ti_(1-z)W_(z)C phase prior to sintering.The dark-cores inherit from the as-milled TiC power to further enable the reprecipitation of rims from a mixed liquid-phase,which facilitated also the anisotropic growth of TiB_(2) grains.The dark-cores grow persistently in the second-step at 2000℃ enabled by this liquid-phase,which coarsens the TiB2 grains too.With more alloyed phase,sintering was insufficient at 1500℃ with only the surface fluidity from the primary powders,and the second-step sintering increased the fluidity in the liquid-phase to fully densify the binary microstructure.Re-distribution of the alloyed W by two-step sintering rationalizes the evolution process of the binary microstructures and leads to better understanding of the mechanical behaviors.