2002 Volume 43 Issue 3 Pages 432-435
Compressive tests were conducted in vacuum at temperatures up to 1203 K, on the Ti3SiC2 samples synthesized from 2Ti/2Si/3TiC powder mixture through pulse discharge sintering technique. The compressive strength of Ti3SiC2 compound showed a monotonic decrease with increasing testing temperature. The Ti3SiC2 samples displayed obvious brittle fracture behavior at temperatures below 1073 K. When the testing temperature was above 1123 K, obvious pseudo-plastic deformation behavior was observed in the stress-strain curves. At these temperatures, after an initial pseudo-strain-hardening, a decrease in stress follows with further increasing strain. The pseudo-plastic behavior of Ti3SiC2 at temperature above 1123 K could be attributed to the basal plane slip, kink-band formation, delamination of layers at local sites, and intergranular cracking. Further increase in strain causes the growth and linkage of microcracks, which gives rise to the reduction of the real area of the cross section of specimen and hence lead to the “strain-softening” phenomenon.
