Spark plasma sintering and deformation behaviour of Titanium and Titanium/TiB2Spark plasma sintering and deformation behaviour of Titanium and Titanium/TiB2 composites

Titanium has been used as a model substance to study how it behaves in a SPS apparatus when heating rate and/or pressure were varied during the sintering and deformation process. The sintering and deformation of Ti in SPS were compared with that occurring in the conventional hot pressing (HP) in order to reveal if there are any positive effects added by the use of SPS. The ductility of Ti was explored in order to understand the sintering and deformation of (Ti) x (TiB2)1-x composites with x = 0.05, 0.1, and 0.2, respectively, expressed in mol ratio. The temperature difference (DT) between the monitored and the temperature that the samples are exposed to was evaluated. It was noticed that Ti can be sintered at relatively low temperatures. High heating rate implied that the onset temperatures of the sintering and deformation processes decreased. Increasing pressure did not affect the onset temperature but revealed that the deformation of Ti is different if the experiments are conducted within the stability region of the a -phase region of Ti or if the deformation takes place in a temperature region that covers both a-and b-phase areas, i. e. the use of high pressures implied a one step deformation process while the use of low implied that the main part of the deformation took place in the b-phase region. (Ti) x (TiB2)1-x composites were prepared to full densities at 1500 °C using a holding time of 3 min and pressure of 50 MPa. During the SPS sintering the composite with x= 0.2 revealed the presence of TiB due to the reaction Ti + TiB 2 -> 2TiB while the composites with low x values did not show any formation of TiB. The formation of TiB impaired the mechanical properties. The deformation of composites was very difficult. Their deformability increased with increasing x and temperature as well as pressure. During the deformations of pre-sintered samples TiB was formed in all of the composites