Effect of volume fraction of reinforcement phase on mechanical behavior of ultra-high-temperature composite consisting of iron matrix and TiB2 particulates

Abstract

Recently, ultra-high-temperature ceramics have received abundance attention due to growing demand of new materials for extreme service conditions. In this study, titanium diboride particles as an ultra-high-temperature ceramic material have been used to reinforce iron matrix to fabricate a metal matrix composite. Iron–titanium diboride composite samples with different volume fractions of titanium diboride fabricated using powder metallurgy route. Physical, microstructural and mechanical properties of metal matrix composite were studied. The results indicated that addition of titanium diboride only up to 20 vol% increased mechanical properties of the processed composite. Microstructure-based finite element analysis could verify the experimental results.