Special features of the formation of the structure and properties of materials from the B4C-TiH2 powder system in reaction sintering under pressure

The results of studying reaction sintering under pressure in the B 4 C-TiH 2 system have been discussed. It has been shown that the material structure consists of the B 4 C matrix phase and intergranular phase of titanium diboride (borocarbide) having a small mutual solubility of components. Physicomechanical properties of the materials have been studied depending on the composition. A increase of titanium hydride by 9 wt % has been shown to decrease hardness by 16%, to affect the bending strength (∼500 MPa) only slightly, and to increase the fracture toughness by 60%—up to 6.0 MPa·m 1/2 and the thermal expansion coefficient—by 90%—up to 5.2 × 10 6 /K.