Titanium discontinuous composites

Key words Titanium discontinuous composites, microstructure, mechanical properties, plastic deformation. 

Titanium-based composites discontinuously reinforced with silicides, borides and their mixtures are an attractive candidate to be a material with... 

The titanium-based composites with discontinuous reinforcement are attractive materials for a wide range of applications because of their high specific strength and stiffness and good fracture-related properties. Mechanical behavior of these materials depends strongly on both composition and microstructure of matrix and type, size and volume fraction of reinforcing phase. Hot plastic deformation is a powerful tool enhancing mechanical properties of titanium alloys. 

Metal-Matrix Composites. A metal-matrix composite (MMC) is comprised of a metal ahoy, less than 50% by volume that is reinforced by one or more constituents with a significantly higher elastic modulus. Reinforcement materials include carbides, oxides, graphite, borides, intermetahics or even polymeric products. These materials can be used in the form of whiskers, continuous or discontinuous fibers, or particles. Matrices can be made from metal ahoys of Mg, Al, Ti, Cu, Ni or Fe. In addition, intermetahic compounds such as titanium and nickel aluminides, Ti Al and Ni Al, respectively, are also used as a matrix material (58,59). P/M MMC can be formed by a variety of full-density hot consolidation processes, including hot pressing, hot isostatic pressing, extmsion, or forging. 

It is a valve metal and when made anodic in a chloride-containing solution it forms an anodic oxide film of TiOj (rutile form), that thickens with an increase in voltage up to 8-12 V, when localised film breakdown occurs with subsequent pitting. The TiOj film has a high electrical resistivity, and this coupled with the fact that breakdown can occur at the e.m.f. s produced by the transformer rectifiers used in cathodic protection makes it unsuitable for use as an anode material. Nevertheless, it forms a most valuable substrate for platinum, which may be applied to titanium in the form of a thin coating. The composite anode is characterised by the fact that the titanium exposed at discontinuities is protected by the anodically formed dielectric Ti02 film. Platinised titanium therefore provides an economical method of utilising the inertness and electronic conductivity of platinum on a relatively inexpensive, yet inert substrate. 

As noted above, the range of fibers employed does not precisely overlap with those employed for organic composites. Because the formation of the MMCs generally requires melting of the metal-matrix, the fibers need to have some stability to relatively high temperatures. Such fibers include graphite, silicon carbide, boron, alumina-silica, and alumina fibers. Most of these are available as continuous and discontinuous fibers. It also includes a number of thin metal wires made from tungsten, titanium, molybdenum, and beryllium. 

A prediction of theory (Chapter 4) is that when an insulator-metal transition of either band-crossing or Mott type occurs through a change of composition in an alloy, the zero-temperature conductivity should jump discontinuously from zero to a finite value. This seems to be the case for the alloys with Ti203. The alloys with titanium have a conductivity when metallic of order 104 1 cm-1 at... 

Key words Titanium in-situ composites, discontinuous reinforcement, silicide reinforcement, boride reinforcement, mixed silicide-boride reinforcement, ductile reinforcement, microstructure, a -phase, (3-phase, mechanical properties, fracture mechanisms. 

Tanaka, Y., Yang, J.M., Liu, YJ., Kagawaa, Y., 2007. Characterization of nanoscale defomiation in a discontinuously reinforced titanium composite using AFM and nanolithography. Scripta... 

The nanorod represents an important building block for nanostructures. Nanorods would be useful as reinforcements in metal and ceramic matrix composites as well as ideal structures with which to pin vortices in high-temperature superconductors (119). Whiskers represent attractive reinforcing additives for metal and ceramic matrix compositions to impart more strength to the ceramic object. The superior performance of titanium carbide reinforcements is found in two different forms, discontinuous fiber and hollow microspheres, by controlled morphology carbide synthesis where titanium and carbon precursors combine in specially designed graphite... 

The superalloys, as well as alloys of aluminum, magnesium, titanium, and copper, are used as matrix materials. The reinforcement may be in the form of particulates, both continuous and discontinuous fibers, and whiskers concentrations normally range between 10 and 60 vol%. Continuous-fiber materials include carbon, silicon carbide, boron, aluminum oxide, and the refractory metals. However, discontinuous reinforcements consist primarily of silicon carbide whiskers, chopped fibers of aluminum oxide and carbon, or particulates of silicon carbide and aluminum oxide. In a sense, the cermets (Section 16.2) fall within this MMC scheme. Table 16.9 presents the properties of several common metal-matrix, continuous and aligned fiber-reinforced composites. 

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