A study of mechanical properties and WEDM machinability of spark plasma sintered ZrB2-B4C ceramic composites

Saikat Mandal; Shirshendu Chakraborty; ParthaPratim Dey

doi:10.1016/j.micron.2021.103198

A study of mechanical properties and WEDM machinability of spark plasma sintered ZrB₂-B₄C ceramic composites

Micron. 2022 Feb:153:103198. doi: 10.1016/j.micron.2021.103198. Epub 2021 Dec 13.

Authors

Saikat Mandal¹, Shirshendu Chakraborty², ParthaPratim Dey³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIEST, Shibpur, Howrah, India. Electronic address: saikatmandal1992@gmail.com.
² CSIR-Central Glass & Ceramic Research Institute, Jadavpur, Kolkata, India.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIEST, Shibpur, Howrah, India.

PMID: 34923407
DOI: 10.1016/j.micron.2021.103198

Abstract

Four different compositions of ZrB₂-B₄C composites (i.e., 5, 15, 20, 25 Wt. % of B₄C) were fabricated by Spark Plasma Sintering Technique (SPS) at 2000 °C temperature. The composites were characterized by the evolution of physical and mechanical properties; X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis was also done for phase analysis of the composites. The relative density values were obtained in the range of 96.14-97.78 % of all the composites. The addition of B₄C in ZrB₂ matrix led to an enhancement in hardness (15.38 GPa at 5 wt.% B₄C to 20.49 GPa at 25 wt.% B₄C measured at 1.0 kgf load) and fracture toughness (from 2.93 MPa-m^0.5 at 5 wt.% B₄C to 4.13 MPa-m^0.5 at 25 wt.% B₄C measured at 1.0 kgf load). The composite samples were processed by wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) process with three different parameters set for the study of machining speed, surface roughness. The composite with 25 wt.% of B₄C shows highest machining speed of 10.56 mm²/min. The average surface roughness (R_a) of the WEDM processed composite surfaces lies in the range of 1.26-5.64 μm.

Keywords: Mechanical properties; Sintering; Ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTC); Wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM); X-ray diffraction.