Production of titanium matrix composites reinforced with SiC particles

Titanium alloys exhibit high specific strength and stiffness that fit structural applications demanding lightweight construction. Ceramic reinforcements can improve specific strength and stiffness, and also the wear resistance. Higher specific strength and Young's modulus is expected when reinforcing titanium by SiC particles compared to other reinforcements. The production of a SiC reinforced titanium alloy using conventional powder metallurgy methods (PM) yields porosity and silicides formation. PM processing methods are discussed in this work: equal channel angular pressing, Spark plasma sintering, sintering using an induction oven and hot extrusion. Consolidation time and temperature are considerably decreased avoiding the silicide formation, while consolidation loads were increased to obtain a denser Ti-SiC composite. Hot extruded samples show the best results, without any reaction zone and a density near to the theoretical one. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.