INVESTIGATION ON THE FORMATION MECHANISM OF TITANIUM CARBIDE PREPARED BY IN SITU REACTION IN MOLTEN ALUMINUM

A novel technique m which TiC particulates are prepared by an in situ reaction in molten aluminum is introduced for producing TiC/Al composite. In order to reveal the characteristic of the technique, the formation mechanism of TiC particulates prepared by this method is studied in this paper. Both theoretical and experimental results have shown that the TiC particulates are formed by a diffusion mechanism when the molar fraction of aluminum in the preforms is higher than 20.02%. On the contrary, the TiC particulates are formed by a solution-precipitation mechanism when the fraction of aluminum in the preforms is lower than 20.02%.