Aluminium magnesium boride: synthesis, sintering and microstructure

TY - JOUR

T1 - Aluminium magnesium boride

T2 - synthesis, sintering and microstructure

AU - Xie, Zhilin

AU - DeLucca, Vincent

AU - Haber, Richard A.

AU - Restrepo, David T.

AU - Todd, Jacob

AU - Blair, Richard G.

AU - Orlovskaya, Nina

N1 - Funding Information: This work was supported by NSF project DMR - 0748364. Part of this research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation I/UCRC subdirectorate and was accomplished Award No.1540027. Publisher Copyright: © 2017 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. Published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the Institute.

PY - 2017/8/18

Y1 - 2017/8/18

N2 - AlMgB14 ceramics were reported as high-hardness materials over a decade ago. While different synthesis routes for processing of AlMgB14 ceramics were reported in the past, however the synthesis routes are still not optimised and present a significant challenge to the manufacturers. In this work six different synthesis routes were explored for the synthesis of AlMgB14 powder. The synthesised compositions were characterised by XRD, where weight fractions of each phase were calculated by Rietveld refinement. The bulk ceramics were sintered using powder with the highest yield (93.2%) of AlMgB14 phase by spark plasma sintering at 1315°C and 50 MPa. Both phase composition and microstructure of the sintered AlMgB14 were characterised by XRD and SEM/EDS, which revealed the existence of AlMgB14, MgAl2O4 and a small amount of unreacted Al. Hardness and indentation fracture resistance of AlMgB14 ceramics were measured to be 26.7 ± 2.2 GPa and 5.59 ± 0.42 MPa m1/2, respectively by Vickers indentation technique.

AB - AlMgB14 ceramics were reported as high-hardness materials over a decade ago. While different synthesis routes for processing of AlMgB14 ceramics were reported in the past, however the synthesis routes are still not optimised and present a significant challenge to the manufacturers. In this work six different synthesis routes were explored for the synthesis of AlMgB14 powder. The synthesised compositions were characterised by XRD, where weight fractions of each phase were calculated by Rietveld refinement. The bulk ceramics were sintered using powder with the highest yield (93.2%) of AlMgB14 phase by spark plasma sintering at 1315°C and 50 MPa. Both phase composition and microstructure of the sintered AlMgB14 were characterised by XRD and SEM/EDS, which revealed the existence of AlMgB14, MgAl2O4 and a small amount of unreacted Al. Hardness and indentation fracture resistance of AlMgB14 ceramics were measured to be 26.7 ± 2.2 GPa and 5.59 ± 0.42 MPa m1/2, respectively by Vickers indentation technique.

KW - Aluminium magnesium boride

KW - hardness

KW - microstructure

KW - spark plasma sintering

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U2 - https://doi.org/10.1080/17436753.2017.1317116

DO - https://doi.org/10.1080/17436753.2017.1317116

M3 - Article

SN - 1743-6753

VL - 116

SP - 341

EP - 347

JO - Advances in Applied Ceramics

JF - Advances in Applied Ceramics

IS - 6

ER -