Spark Plasma Sintering of Commercial Zirconium Carbide Powders: Densification Behavior and Mechanical Properties

Wei, Xialu; Back, Christina; Izhvanov, Oleg; Khasanov, Oleg; Haines, Christopher; Olevsky, Eugene

doi:10.3390/ma8095289

Spark Plasma Sintering of Commercial Zirconium Carbide Powders: Densification Behavior and Mechanical Properties

Journal Article · Thu Sep 10 04:00:00 EDT 2015 · Materials

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/ma8095289· OSTI ID:1455149

Wei, Xialu ^[1]; Back, Christina ^[2]; Izhvanov, Oleg ^[2]; Khasanov, Oleg ^[3]; Haines, Christopher ^[4]; Olevsky, Eugene ^[5]

San Diego State Univ., CA (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Dr., San Diego, CA 92182
General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
National Research Tomsk Polytechnic Univ., Tomsk (Russian Federation)
United States Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ (United States)
San Diego State Univ., CA (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; National Research Tomsk Polytechnic Univ., Tomsk (Russian Federation)

Commercial zirconium carbide (ZrC) powder is consolidated by Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS). Processing temperatures range from 1650 to 2100 °C. Specimens with various density levels are obtained when performing single-die SPS at different temperatures. Besides the single-die tooling setup, a double-die tooling setup is employed to largely increase the actual applied pressure to achieve higher densification in a shorter processing time. In order to describe the densification mechanism of ZrC powder under SPS conditions, a power-law creep constitutive equation is utilized, whose coefficients are determined by the inverse regression of the obtained experimental data. The densification of the selected ZrC powder is shown to be likely associated with grain boundary sliding and dislocation glide controlled creep. Transverse rupture strength and microhardness of sintered specimens are measured to be up to 380 MPa and 24 GPa, respectively. Mechanical properties are correlated with specimens’ average grain size and relative density to elucidate the co-factor dependencies.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: San Diego State Univ., CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0008581

OSTI ID:: 1455149

Journal Information:: Materials, Journal Name: Materials Journal Issue: 9 Vol. 8; ISSN 1996-1944

Publisher:: MDPICopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
microhardness (Hv)
power-law creep (PLC)
spark plasma sintering (SPS)
transverse rupture strength (TRS)
zirconium carbide (ZrC)

Spark Plasma Sintering of Commercial Zirconium Carbide Powders: Densification Behavior and Mechanical Properties

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