Effect of heat absorbing powder addition on cell morphology of porous titanium composite manufactured by reactive precursor method

Open-cell structured porous titanium/ceramics composite was synthesized by a reactive precursor method using titanium and boron carbide (B4C) as reactant powders. Pore morphology was controlled by adding heat absorbing powder (titanium diboride: TiB2) in the Ti+B4C blended powder. The effects of molar blending ratio of titanium and B4C and the amount of heat absorbing powder addition on the cell morphology (either open or closed) were investigated. Fine and homogeneous open-cell structure was achieved by adding appropriate amount of heat absorbing agent powder (>15 vol%), and the relative density of the specimen after the reaction became closer to that of the precursor by increasing TiB2 volume fraction. When the volume fraction of TiB2 addition was 20%, the open-cell fraction was maintained as 1.0 regardless of the relative density of the precursor.