Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access

Toughening of Boron Carbide Composites by Hierarchical Microstructuring

JINGYAO DAI, EVAN PINEDA, BRETT BEDNARCYK, JOGENDER SINGH, NAMIKO YAMAMOTO

Abstract


Due to a unique combination of properties including high hardness, low density, chemical and thermal stability, semi-conductivity, and high neutron absorption, boron carbide (B C) is a potential candidate for various applications involving extreme environment. However, B C’s current application is limited because of its low fracture toughness. In this study, a hierarchical microstructure design with features including TiB grains and graphite platelets was used to toughen B C by simultaneously utilizing multiple toughening mechanisms including crack deflection, bridging, and micro-crack toughening. Using field-assisted sintering technology (FAST), B C composites with dense and hierarchical microstructure were fabricated. Previously, the fracture toughness of fabricated B C composites was measured at micro-scale using micro- indentation to have up to 56% improvement. In this work, the B C composites’ fracture toughness was characterized at macro-scale using four-point bending methods and compared with previous results obtained at micro-scale. Micromechanics modeling of fracture behaviors for B C-TiB composites was also performed to evaluate the contributions from experimentally observed toughening mechanisms. From four-point bending tests, B C composites reinforced with both TiB grains (~15 vol%) and graphite platelets (~8.7 vol%) exhibited the highest fracture toughness enhancement from 2.38 to 3.65 MPa·m1/2. The measured values were lower than those obtained using micro- indentation but maintained the general trends. The discrepancy between the indentation and four-point bending test results originated from the complex deformation behaviors triggered by the high contact load during indentation tests. Through micromechanics modeling, introduced thermal residual stress due to thermal expansion mismatch between B C and TiB , and weak interphases at B C-TiB boundaries were identified as the main causes for experimentally observed toughness enhancement. These results proved the effectiveness of hierarchical microstructure designs for B4C toughening and can provide reference for the future design of B4C composites with optimized microstructures for further fracture toughness enhancement.


DOI
10.12783/asc36/35877

Full Text:

PDF

References


Thévenot, F. “Boron Carbide-A Comprehensive Review.†Journal of the European Ceramic Society, Vol. 6, No. 4, 1990, pp. 205–225.

Murthy, S. R. “Elastic Properties of Boron Carbide.†Journal of Materials Science Letters, Vol. 4, No. 5, 1985, pp. 603–605.

Bauccio, M. ASM Engineered Materials Reference Book. ASM International, 1994.

Boron and Refractory Borides. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 1977.

Hyukjae Lee, R. F. S. “Hardness and Fracture Toughness of Pressureless-Sintered Boron Carbide (B4C).†Journal American Ceramic Society, Vol. 85, No. 5, 2002, pp. 1291–1293.

Sigl, L. S., and Kleebe, H. â€J. “Microcracking in B 4 Câ€TiB 2 Composites.†Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Vol. 78, No. 9, 1995, pp. 2374–2380.

Skorokhod, V., and Krstic, V. D. “High Strength-High Toughness B4C-TiB2 Composites.†Journal of Materials Science Letters, Vol. 19, No. 3, 2000, pp. 237–239.

Yamada, S., Hirao, K., Yamauchi, Y., and Kanzaki, S. “High Strength B4C- TiB2 Composites Fabricated by Reaction Hot-Pressing.†Journal of the European Ceramic Society, Vol. 23, No. 7, 2003, pp. 1123–1130.

Huang, S. G., Vanmeensel, K., Malek, O. J. A., Van der Biest, O., and Vleugels, J. “Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Pulsed Electric Current Sintered B4C-TiB2 Composites.†Materials Science and Engineering A, Vol. 528, No. 3, 2011, pp. 1302–1309.

Huang, S. G., Vanmeensel, K., Van der Biest, O., and Vleugels, J. “In Situ Synthesis and Densification of Submicrometer-Grained B4C-TiB2 Composites by Pulsed Electric Current Sintering.†Journal of the European Ceramic Society, Vol. 31, No. 4, 2011, pp. 637–644.

Baharvandi, H. R., Hadian, A. M., Abdizadeh, A., and Ehsani, N. Investigation on Addition of ZrO2-3 Mol% Y2O 3 Powder on Sintering Behavior and Mechanical Properties of B 4C. No. 41, 2006, pp. 5269–5272.

Suri, A. K., Subramanian, C., Sonber, J. K., and Ch Murthy, T. S. R. Synthesis and Consolidation of Boron Carbide: A Review. International Materials Reviews. 1. Volume 55, 4–38.

Kobayashi, T., Yoshida, K., and Yano, T. “Microstructure, Mechanical and Thermal Properties of B4C/CNT Composites with Al Additive.†Journal of Nuclear Materials, Vol. 440, Nos. 1–3,

, pp. 524–529.

Yavas, B., Sahin, F., Yucel, O., and Goller, G. “Effect of Particle Size, Heating Rate and CNT

Addition on Densification, Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of B4C Ceramics.â€

Ceramics International, Vol. 41, No. 7, 2015, pp. 8936–8944.

Tan, Y., Zhang, H., and Peng, S. “Electrically Conductive Graphene Nanoplatelet/Boron

Carbide Composites with High Hardness and Toughness.†Scripta Materialia, Vol. 114, 2016,

pp. 98–102.

Liu, L., Wang, Y., Li, X., Xu, L., Cao, X., Wang, Y., Wang, Z., Meng, C., Zhu, W., and

Ouyang, X. “Enhancing Toughness in Boron Carbide with Reduced Graphene Oxide.†Journal

of the American Ceramic Society, Vol. 99, No. 1, 2016, pp. 257–264.

Madhav Reddy, K., Guo, J. J., Shinoda, Y., Fujita, T., Hirata, A., Singh, J. P., McCauley, J. W.,

and Chen, M. W. “Enhanced Mechanical Properties of Nanocrystalline Boron Carbide by

Nanoporosity and Interface Phases.†Nature Communications, Vol. 3, 2012, p. 1052.

Guo, D., Song, S., Luo, R., Goddard, W. A., Chen, M., Reddy, K. M., and An, Q. “Grain

Boundary Sliding and Amorphization Are Responsible for the Reverse Hall-Petch Relation in

Superhard Nanocrystalline Boron Carbide.†Physical Review Letters, Vol. 121, No. 14, 2018.

Xia, Z., Riester, L., Curtin, W. A., Li, H., Sheldon, B. W., Liang, J., Chang, B., and Xu, J. M.

“Direct Observation of Toughening Mechanisms in Carbon Nanotube Ceramic Matrix

Composites.†Acta Materialia, Vol. 52, No. 4, 2004, pp. 931–944.

Xia, Z., Riester, L., Sheldon, B. W., Curtin, W. a, Liang, J., Yin, a, and Xu, J. M. “Mechanical

Properties of Highly Ordered Nanoporous Anodic Alumina Membranes.†Analysis, Vol. 6, No.

, 2004, pp. 131–139.

Dai, J., Singh, J., and Yamamoto, N. “Nonbrittle Nanopore Deformation of Anodic Aluminum

Oxide Membranes.†Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Vol. 101, No. 5, 2018, pp.

–2180.

Dai, J., Singh, J., and Yamamoto, N. Toughening of Boron Carbide Composites with

Hierarchical Microstructuring. No. 1 PartF, 2020.

Dai, J., Singh, J., and Yamamoto, N. “Fabrication and Characterization of FAST Sintered

Micro/Nano Boron Carbide Composites with Enhanced Fracture Toughness.†Journal of the

European Ceramic Society, 2020.

Alizadeh, A., Taheri-Nassaj, E., and Ehsani, N. “Synthesis of Boron Carbide Powder by a

Carbothermic Reduction Method.†Journal of the European Ceramic Society, Vol. 24, Nos. 10–

, 2004, pp. 3227–3234.

Weimer, A. W., Moore, W. G., Roach, R. P., Hitt, J. E., Dixit, R. S., and Pratsinis, S. E.

“Kinetics of Carbothermal Reduction Synthesis of Boron Carbide.†Journal of the American

Ceramic Society, Vol. 75, No. 9, 1992, pp. 2509–2514.

Jung, C. H., Lee, M. J., and Kim, C. J. “Preparation of Carbon-Free B4C Powder from B2O 3

Oxide by Carbothermal Reduction Process.†Materials Letters, Vol. 58, No. 5, 2004, pp. 609–

Dai, J., Pineda, E. J., Bednarcyk, B. A., Singh, J., and Yamamoto, N. Macro-Scale Testing and

Micromechanics Modeling of Fracture Behaviors for Boron Carbide Composites with

Hierarchical Microstructures. 2021.

ASTM C1421 - 18 Standard Test Methods for Determination of Fracture Toughness of

Advanced Ceramics at Ambient Temperature.

Aboudi, J., Pindera, M. J., and Arnold, S. M. “Linear Thermoelastic Higher-Order Theory for

Periodic Multiphase Materials.†Journal of Applied Mechanics, Transactions ASME, Vol. 68,

No. 5, 2001, pp. 697–707.

Aboudi, J., Arnold, S., and Bednarcyk, B. Micromechanics of Composite Materials. Elsevier

Inc., 2013.

ABOUDI, J. “The Generalized Method of Cells and High-Fidelity Generalized Method of Cells

Micromechanical Models—A Review.†Mechanics of Advanced Materials and Structures, Vol.

, Nos. 4–5, 2004, pp. 329–366.

Bednarcyk, B. A., and Arnold, S. M. MAC/GMC 4.0 User’s Manual-Keywords Manual. 2002.

Bednarcyk, B., and Arnold, S. “MAC/GMC 4. 0 User’s Manual: Example Problem Manual.â€

Bažant, Z. P., and Oh, B. H. “Crack Band Theory for Fracture of Concrete.†Matériaux et

Constructions, Vol. 16, No. 3, 1983, pp. 155–177.

Pineda, E. J., Bednarcyk, B. A., Waas, A. M., and Arnold, S. M. Implementation of a Smeared

Crack Band Model in a Micromechanics Framework. 2012.

Pineda, E. J., Bednarcyk, B. A., Waas, A. M., and Arnold, S. M. “Progressive Failure of a

Unidirectional Fiber-Reinforced Composite Using the Method of Cells: Discretization Objective

Computational Results.†International Journal of Solids and Structures, Vol. 50, No. 9, 2013,

pp. 1203–1216.

Meyer, P., and Waas, A. M. “FEM Predictions of Damage in Continous Fiber Ceramic Matrix

Composites under Transverse Tension Using the Crack Band Method.†Acta Materialia, Vol.

, 2016, pp. 292–303.

White, R. M., and Dickey, E. C. “The Effects of Residual Stress Distributions on Indentation-

Induced Microcracking in B4C-TiB2 Eutectic Ceramic Composites.†Journal of the American

Ceramic Society, Vol. 94, No. 11, 2011, pp. 4032–4039.

White, R. M., and Dickey, E. C. “Mechanical Properties and Deformation Mechanisms of B4CTiB2

Eutectic Composites.†Journal of the European Ceramic Society, Vol. 34, No. 9, 2014, pp.

–2050.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.