Thermodynamic Modeling of the Vacuum Synthesis of Transition Metal Borides for Electron Beam Borating

Abstract – Thermodynamic analysis of the Ti-B-C-O and Zr-B-C-O systems was carried out with the aim of establishing the conditions of TiB2, TiB, ZrB2 formation at temperature from 273 to 1813 K and total pressures from 105 to 10–3 Pa. Prelimi-nary results of electron-beam boronizing demon-strate the feasibility of producing refractory-metal borides coating on the surface of carbon steels in a vacuum of 10–2–10–3 Pa. 1