Hipping after sintering of titanium diboride cermets

A new fabrication route, an alternative to glass encapsulated hipping (GEHIP), has been developed to produce dense TiB2 cermets. Key points of this technique, based on hipping after vacuum sintering (VS + HIP), are the use of Ni3(A1,Ti) as binder phase and the selection of the proper amount of additions. The main advantage of VS + HIP with respect to GEHIP is the simplification of the sintering procedure which avoids the glass encapsulation step that makes it more adaptable for industrial use. Successful application of VS + HIP requires a minimum binder content about 10 vol.-% below which a significant hardness reduction is observed owing to the presence of residual porosity as compared with GEHIP. The materials produced by this technique combine low density and high stiffness with high hardness and toughness values, thus giving a set of properties especially attractive for applications where inertial loads are responsible for failure.