Small-scale mechanical properties of constitutive phases within a polycrystalline cubic boron nitride composite

Micromechanical properties of a polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (PcBN) composite have been assessed by statistical analysis of data gathered from experimental massive nanoindentation. The mechanical study was complemented with electron probe X-Ray microanalysis, aiming to correlate relative B/N ratio and local hardness for individual cBN particles. Best-fit of experimental and deconvoluted data is achieved by considering five mechanically different phases, defined on the basis of chemical nature, TiN/cBN interface presence, ratio between residual imprint dimension and microstructural length scale as well as phase stoichiometry. In-depth local micromechanical and chemical analysis permitted to propose and validate, for the first time, the existence of a correlation between intrinsic hardness and phase stoichiometry for cBN phase. Finally, based on experimental data measured by nanoindentation and analyzed in terms of plastic index, toughness for the PcBN composite studied is estimated to range between 4 and 6¿MPa·vm.Peer Reviewe