Production and characterization of boron carbide based interconnected ceramic–metal composites

In this thesis, production of high ceramic volume content, interconnected B4C based ceramic–metal composites was performed. During the production of composites, enhancing the performance of B4C–Al12Si with microstructure design approach was aimed. Spark plasma sintering (SPS) method provided to achieve different microstructures by enabling microstructure design. As the first stage of composite production; preforming study of B4C powders having different particle size and distribution at different temperature (1600–2050 °C) s via SPS method was carried out. At this stage, the parameters that is required to obtain continuous ceramic phase were determined. At second stage, the optimum infiltration parameters were determined by studying different infiltration temperatures (1000–1300 °C) and times (10 or 60). Chemical and microstructural characterization (XRD, quantitative XRD, SEM) results of obtained composites were correlated with the mechanical characterization (hardness, compression test, examination with ultrasonic method) results. It was determined that measured mechanical properties have increased by using SPS method which enables to obtain interconnected microstructure.