Spark plasma sintering behavior of Fe-TiC composite materials fabricated by mechanical alloying.

TiC-based cermets attract much attention because of their excellent wear-resistance, high hardness at high temperature, good chemical stability, superior thermal deformation resistance. Therefore, titanium carbide is mainly used for cutting tools, grinding wheels, coated cutting tips and coated steel tools. In this research, Fe-TiC composite materials were fabricated by spark plasma sintering (SPS) after mechanical alloying. TiH2 and graphite powders were used to synthesize TiC phase. In order to compare the properties of sintered materials using mixture powder (D'AE+TiH2+graphite), commercial TiC powder was mixed with Distaloy AE (D'AE) powder as a same mechanical alloying method. Then, the shape of each mixture powder (D'AE+TiH2+graphite, D'AE+TiC (commercial)) and sintering properties were compared. TiC phase was synthesized by self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) reaction during spark plasma sintering. It was confirmed by using X-ray diffraction (XRD). Energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to observe shape of mixture powders and also sintering properties were examined such as hardness, relative density. In case of sintered material for 10min holding time at 1373K after 'Mechanical alloying for I hour with D'AE, TiH2 and graphite, it indicated higher hardness value 49H(R-C) than a case using D'AE and TiC powder.