Controlling the oriented growth of Ti2SnC grains with carbon fiber as a reactive template in the Ti–Sn–C system

Carbon short fibers with a length of ∼3 mm used as a reactive template were mixed with Ti and Sn powders. The mixture was pressurelessly sintered at 1200 °C for 2 h in a vacuum atmosphere. The microstructure shows that Ti2SnC grains with a plate-like shape grow along a preferred direction, forming a ‘string’ structure in which Ti2SnC platelets pack themselves closely with a top–bottom–top–bottom sequence. With increasing the length of the C fibers, the length of the ‘string’ structures increases. A large amount of long and aligned ‘string’ structures have formed after sintering the samples prepared by infiltration of the carbon short fibers with a length of ∼50 mm in a Ti–Sn slurry and then stacking and cold pressing. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy, respectively were used to analyze and observe the phase composition and microstructure.