Reaction synthesis of shock densified titanium-silicon powder mixtures

The reaction behavior of shock-densified intermetallic-forming Ti-Si powder mixture compacts was studied to investigate fabrication of net-shaped materials with fine-grained microstructures. Compacts of similar density were also made by uniaxial pressing at 50,000 psi (∼0.78 GPa) to compare their reaction behavior with those made by shock compression. Upon reaction, the uniaxially-pressed samples showed large amount of porosity as compared to the shocked samples, which remained nearly dense following reaction. In addition the shocked and reacted samples had a finer grain size (∼6 μm) and microhardness values ∼20% higher than the statically pressed reacted samples. In this paper, the results of this shock-assisted (post shock) reaction behavior of the monolithic powder mixtures forming Ti5Si3 intermetallic compound will be presented.