Microstructure and properties of a graphene platelets toughened boron carbide composite ceramic by spark plasma sintering

A kind of B₄C/SiC composite ceramic toughened by graphene platelets and Al was fabricated by spark plasma sintering. The effects of graphene platelets and Al on densification, microstructure and mechanical properties were studied. The sintering temperature was decreased about 125–300?°C with the addition of 3–10?wt% Al. Al can also improve fracture toughness but decrease hardness. The B₄C/SiC composite ceramic with 3?wt%Al and 1.5?wt% graphene platelets sintered at 1825?°C for 5?min had the optimal performances. It was fully densified, and the Vickers hardness and fracture toughness were 30.09?±?0.39?GPa and 5.88?±?0.49?MPa?m^1/2, respectively. The fracture toughness was 25.6% higher than that of the composite without graphene platelets. The toughening mechanism of graphene platelets was also studied. Pulling-out of graphene platelets, crack deflection, bridging and branching contributed to the toughness enhancement of the B₄C-based ceramic.     

Densification behavior and mechanical properties of nano-alumina ceramics prepared by Spark Plasma Sintering with pressure applied at different sintering stages

High densification and fine grain size are the key to achieve excellent mechanical properties of ceramic materials. Pressure-assisted sintering is an effective approach to achieve this goal. However, the pressure at different sintering stages has different effects on the densification behavior of nano-ceramics. In this work, it is found that adjusting the pressure applying regime during Spark Plasma Sintering of nano-alumina ceramics can effectively increase the densification rate and balance the relationship between the densification behaviors of particle coarsening, grain growth and vapor migration. When the pressure is applied at the beginning of the second sintering stage, the high densification and fine grain size microstructures can be both obtained at lower temperatures, leading to the best mechanical properties. This result is of great significance for the preparation of nano-ceramics with excellent mechanical properties.     

Two-step pressure sintering of transparent lutetium oxide by spark plasma sintering

Transparent lutetium oxide (Lu₂O₃) body was prepared by spark plasma sintering using a two-step pressure profile combined with a low heating rate. The effects of pre-load pressures from 10 to 100 MPa and heating rates from 0.03 to 1.67 K s⁻¹ on the microstructures and optical properties were investigated. With increasing pre-load pressures from 10 to 100 MPa, the grains became smaller with a narrower distribution, whereas the transmittance showed maxima at 30 MPa. The average grain size slightly increased from 0.67 to 0.86 μm as the heating rate increased from 0.03 to 1.67 K s⁻¹, while the transmittance decreased. Transmittances of 60% at 550 nm and 79% at 2000 nm were obtained under a pre-load pressure of 30 MPa at a heating rate of 0.17 K s⁻¹.     

Spark plasma sintering to restrict sintering reactions and enhance properties of hydroxyapatite–mullite biocomposites

Herein, we demonstrate how spark plasma sintering (SPS) can be useful in restricting the sintering reactions and faster densification in Hydroxyapatite–Mullite system, which otherwise shows extensive sintering reactions during conventional pressureless sintering, as reported in a recent study [Nath et al. J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 93 (2010) 1639–1649]. The microstructure of SPSed Hydroxyapatite (HAp)-20 wt% mullite composites was characterized by submicron sized HAp and equiaxed mullite grains. Another important result has been the achievement of higher hardness of 7 GPa, which is much higher than pressureless sintered composites. The cell culture study including cellular viability using MTT analysis establishes good cytocompatibility of SPSed composites.     

Effects of the nature of the doping salt and of the thermal pre-treatment and sintering temperature on Spark Plasma Sintering of transparent alumina

A slurry of α-Al₂O₃ was doped with Mg, Zr and La nitrates or chlorides, in various amounts in the range 150-500 wt ppm and then freeze-dried to produce nanosized doped powder (∼150 nm). The powder was sintered by SPS to yield transparent polycrystalline alpha alumina. The influence of the nature of the doping element and the starting salt, the thermal treatment before sintering and the sintering temperature on the transparency of the ceramics were investigated. The transparency of the ceramics of nanosized Al₂O₃ was shown to depend mainly on the way the powder was prepared, the nature of the doping salt also had an effect. Finally, a high real inline transmittance, reaching 48.1% was achieved after optimization.     

面向点火系统电磁兼容预测的火花塞动态电路模型

点火系统火花塞放电产生的高压脉冲是汽车电磁干扰的主要来源,为预测点火系统的电磁兼容性,需建立准确的火花塞模型.首先利用有限元方法提取了火花塞静态寄生电容;然后通过对火花塞在不同工作状态下的放电过程和机理分析,将火花塞气隙处理成非线性电阻模型;最后建立了包含火花塞静态寄生电容和气隙非线性电阻的火花塞动态电路模型.一次线圈...     

Microstructural and mechanical evaluation of Al-TiB2 nanostructured composite fabricated by mechanical alloying

Production of bulk Al-TiB₂ nanocomposite from mechanically alloyed powder was studied. Al-20 wt.% TiB₂ metal matrix nanocomposite powder was obtained by mechanical alloying (MA) of pure Ti, B and Al powder mixture. A double step process was used to prevent the formation of undesirable phases like Al₃Ti intermetallic compound, which has been described in our previous papers. The resultant powder was consolidated by spark plasma sintering (SPS) followed up by hot extrusion. The structural characteristics of powder particles and sintered samples were studied by X-ray diffractometry (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Hardness measurements were conducted on the cross section of powder particles and sintered sample and the tensile behavior of extruded samples was evaluated. The results showed that the prepared Al-20 wt.% TiB₂ nanocomposite has good thermal stability against grain growth and particle coarsening. Extruded Al-20 wt.% TiB₂ showed a hardness value of 180 VHN and yield and tensile strength of 480 and 540 MPa, respectively, which are much higher than those reported for similar composites made by other processes.     

Cu@Ag包覆粉体的SPS烧结及其致密机理研究

采用化学镀法制备Cu@Ag包覆粉体,并利用放电等离子烧结技术(SPS)对其进行烧结,利用扫描电子显微镜、透射电子显微镜研究包覆粉体、烧结样品的微观结构,对烧结样品的物相、致密度及其致密化机理进行表征与分析。结果表明,化学镀法制备的Cu@Ag粉体表面存在高纯的包覆层。在较低的烧结温度下可以得到致密度高的Cu-Ag烧结块体,温度升高,Cu-Ag烧结块体的致密度逐渐升高,550℃时,致密度达到极大值96.76%。分析认为,得益于Cu@Ag粉体的包覆结构,在低温下,铜颗粒表面的纳米银的颈缩促进了烧结;在高温下,Cu、Ag间的固溶进一步促进了烧结。     

基于Spark平台的NetFlow流量分析系统

目前典型的NetFlow分析系统多为基于私有架构或平台的第三方系统,面临扩展性较低、开放性不足、扩容代价大、分析时延长等问题.大数据技术的快速发展尤其是内存式计算平台如Spark的出现为集中处理大规模NetFlow数据提供了可能,本文提出了基于Spark的NetFlow分析系统,验证了核心算法(如流量应用构成统计)在Spark平台的性能.实验表明,基于Spark的NetFlow分析系统具有很高的性能和很强的扩展能力,较之Hadoop MapReduce有显著的性能提升.     

Capability of mechanical alloying and SPS technique to develop nanostructured high Cr,Al alloyed ODS steels

Abstract

Oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) Fe alloys were produced by mechanical alloying (MA) with the aim of developing a nanostructured powder. The milled powders were consolidated by spark plasma sintering (SPS). Two prealloyed high chromium stainless steels (Fe–14Cr–5Al–3W) and (Fe–20Cr–5Al+3W) with additions of Y₂O₃ and Ti powders are densified to evaluate the influence of the powder composition on mechanical properties. The microstructure was characterised by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and electron backscattering diffraction (EBSD) was used to analyse grain orientation, grain boundary geometries and distribution grain size. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDX) were used to observe the nanostructure of ODS alloys and especially to observe and analyse the nanoprecipitates. Vickers microhardness and tensile tests (in situ and ex situ) have been performed on the ODS alloys developed in this work.