Extraordinary toughening enhancement in nonstoichiometric vanadium carbide

doi:10.1016/j.jmst.2021.04.057

Abstract

Abstract:

Improving fracture toughness, which has gone through decades, is a long-standing topic and is particularly important for safety-critical applications. In refractory transition metal carbides (RTMCs), remarkable toughening is usually achieved by adding metallic binders, however, resulting in a drastic deterioration of hardness and thermal stability. Here, we report a novel self-toughening strategy for synthesizing high-toughness RTMCs. Using mechanical alloying (MA) and spark plasma sintering (SPS), we synthesized nonstoichiometric VC_1-_x (0.5 ≤ 1-x ≤ 0.6) with a quasi-monophasic microstructure containing a carbon-rich matrix and carbon-poor precipitates. Significantly, the VC_0.5 sintered at 1400°C shows a good trade-off of high hardness of 20.5±0.5 GPa and fracture toughness of 7.1±0.2 MPa m^1/2. The fracture toughness of VC_0.5 increases by more than 100% accompanied by 7% hardness loss, compared with that of stoichiometric VC. The microstructure characterization and fracture behavior analysis demonstrate that the extraordinary toughening enhancement is attributed to a self-toughening strategy combined with coherency toughening and amorphous bridging toughening, which may offer an efficient pathway for developing high-performance structural ceramics.

Key words: Vanadium carbide, Nonstoichiometric, Self-toughening, Coherent interfaces, Amorphous bridging

Chong Peng, Hu Tang, Changjian Geng, Pengjie Liang, Biao Wan, Yujiao Ke, Yuefeng Wang, Peng Jia, Wenfeng Peng, Lina Qiao, Kenan Li, Xiaohong Yuan, Yucheng Zhao, Mingzhi Wang. Extraordinary toughening enhancement in nonstoichiometric vanadium carbide[J]. J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2022, 97: 176-181.

Figures/Tables 4

Fig. 1. Analyses of crystal structure, chemical composition, and microstructural characterizations. (a) Rietveld refinement for XRD pattern of nonstoichiometric VC0.5 bulk after sintering at 1400°C. (b) Typical BSE image and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) point-analyzed results in the inset. (c, d) The corresponding SEM-EDS mappings of (a).

Fig. 2. TEM analysis and quasi-monophasic structure model of the synthesized VC0.5. (a) HAADF-STEM image of the VC0.5 bulk sintered at 1400°C. (b, c) EDS mappings acquired from (a). (d) Typical HRTEM image acquired from the marked area of (a). (e) The IFFT image corresponding to the marked area of (d). (f, g) SAED patterns of (f) VC0.60 matrix and (g) VC0.37 precipitates. (h) Intensity-distance profiles are taken from the SAED patterns of the matrix and precipitates, as indicated by the red and green arrows in (f) and (g), respectively. (i) Atomic structure projection of synthesized VC0.5 along the [110] zone axis.

Fig. 3. Comparison of mechanical properties. (a) Vickers hardness and fracture toughness of VC1-x at 1400°C. (b) Ashby plot of hardness against fracture toughness for VC1-x compared with the previously reported binary RTMCs. Error bars shown in the plot represent the standard deviation of the data.

Fig. 4. Analysis of fracture behaviors. (a) The BSE image of the cracks initiated during indentation of VC0.5. (b) Magnified BSE image from the marked region in (a). Minor WC impurity introduced during MA are observed. (c) HADDF-STEM image of the cracks. (d) BF-STEM image of the crack propagation path in VC0.5. (e) Typical HRTEM image of the crack tip acquired from the marked of (d). Insets: the corresponding Fast Fourier transformation (FFT) images of the marked areas. (f) HRTEM image of the crack marked in (d).

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