Study on synthesis of titanium carbide bulk by spark plasma sintering

In this work,the blended powders of titanium carbide(TiC) /titanium hydride(TiH2) are sintered by spark plasma sintering(SPS) in order to prepare TiC bulk.The qualitive and structural analysis are realized by X-ray diffraction(XRD) combined with Rietveld refinement.Furthermore,the micrographs of the fracture surface is characterized by scanning electron microscopy(SEM).Then,the hardness is measured and the densification and reactive mechanism of TiC bulk prepared by SPS technology are discussed.The results show that the TiC bulk with good densification is prepared by SPS with the starting materials of blended powders.Compared with traditional sintering methods,the SPS technology is of lower sintering temperature and less time.