Formation of Al3Ti and Al2O3 from an Al-TiO2 system for preparing in-situ aluminium matrix composites

In-situ processing offers significant advantages over conventional processing from both technical and economic standpoints. Al-TiO2 is one of the interesting systems that has recently been receiving some attention. In this paper, the formation mechanism of Al3Ti and Al2O3 from an Al-TiO2 system is investigated by using thermal analysis, XRD and microstructural characterisation. It is found that the in-situ processing involves three intermediate steps. In addition, TiO and gamma-Al2O3 are transitional phases, which form during the reactive process. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.