Microstructural influences on consolidation behavior of titanium metal matrix composites

Vacuum hot pressing has been used for the development of Ti-MMCs using foil-fiber-foil bundles, and a unified micro-mechanical model has been presented to determine the densification behavior. The effects of process conditions on the consolidation, together with microstructural evolution of the materials, have been investigated. As a result either increasing temperature or pressure leads to increasing densification rate but the conditions should be determined by the precisely controlled geometrical arrangement that is related to the heterogeneous microstructures. The experimentally measured microstructural changes have shown that both grain growth and refinement occurs during the process, and their effect on densification have been analyzed by means of two types of possible mechanisms including grain growth kinetics and dynamic recrystallization. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.