Grain growth kinetics and densification mechanism of (TiZrHfVNbTa)C high-entropy ceramic under pressureless sintering

doi:10.1016/j.jmst.2021.08.070

Abstract

Abstract:

The grain growth kinetics and densification mechanism of (TiZrHfVNbTa)C high-entropy carbide ceramic are investigated in this work. A single phase carbide with a rock-salt structure is formed until 2300 °C, below which an apparent aggregation of V, Zr and Hf exists. It is associated with the slow diffusion rate of V element as well as the relatively poor solubility of VC in HfC (as well as ZrC). The grain growth mechanism gradually changes from surface diffusion to volume diffusion and then grain boundary diffusion with increasing sintering temperature. This is attributed to the variation of activation energy of grain growth. The densification mechanism is principally dominated by the mass transport through lattice diffusion with the activation energy of 839 ± 53 kJ/mol. Through the design of two-step sintering, it is verified that the solid solution formation can effectively promote the densification process.

Key words: High-entropy carbide ceramic, Pressureless sintering, Grain growth kinetics, Densification mechanism

Wen Zhang, Lei Chen, Chenguang Xu, Xuming Lv, Yujin Wang, Jiahu Ouyang, Yu Zhou. Grain growth kinetics and densification mechanism of (TiZrHfVNbTa)C high-entropy ceramic under pressureless sintering[J]. J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2022, 110: 57-64.

Figures/Tables 10

Fig. 1. XRD patterns of (TiZrHfVNbTa)C ceramics pressureless-sintered at different temperatures.

Fig. 2. Polished surface micrographs with the corresponding EDS mappings of (TiZrHfVNbTa)C ceramics sintered at : (a) 1900 °C; (b) 2000 °C; (c) 2100 °C; (d) 2200 °C.

Table 1. EDS results for different areas in (TiZrHfVNbTa)C ceramics sintered under different temperatures as shown in Fig. 2.

Temperature	Zone	Element (at.%)
Temperature	Zone	Ti	Zr	Hf	V	Nb	Ta
1900 °C	1	15.21	16.65	24.25	11.73	15.04	17.11
1900 °C	2	19.84	8.06	11.05	32.67	13.54	14.85
2000 °C	1	16.32	16.67	18.77	13.89	15.61	18.74
2000 °C	2	17.86	11.06	12.34	24.08	19.47	15.20
2100 °C	1	16.05	15.26	19.06	14.25	17.54	17.84
2100 °C	2	17.58	13.36	16.21	20.53	13.35	18.97
2200 °C	1	17.24	14.38	17.88	16.82	16.45	17.23
2200 °C	2	17.14	13.84	17.99	17.84	15.64	17.54

Fig. 3. Relative density evolution as a function of sintering temperature.

Fig. 4. SEM morphologies of polished surfaces of ceramics synthesized at (a-c) 2100 °C, (d-f) 2200 °C, (g-i) 2300 °C for 1 h, 2 h and 4 h, respectively.

Fig. 5. Average grain size of (TiZrHfVNbTa)C ceramics synthesized at different sintering conditions.

Fig. 6. Linear fitting relationship of (Dtn-D0n) against dwell time for (TiZrHfVNbTa)C ceramics sintered at (a) 2100 °C; (b) 2200 °C; (c) 2300 °C.

Fig. 7. (a) Linear fitting relationship of ln(D/D0) against 104T-1 for (TiZrHfVNbTa)C ceramics; (b) Grain growth activation energy of (TiZrHfVNbTa)C ceramics sintered at different sintering conditions.

Fig. 8. (a) Relative density as a function of different dwell time; (b) Arrhenius plots of densification rate vs. inverse temperature for the pressureless-sintered (TiZrHfVNbTa)C ceramics.

Fig. 9. Polished surface micrographs of (TiZrHfVNbTa)C ceramics sintered at different two-step sintering conditions.

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