The pre-mixture of elemental powders of Ti and Al was supplied for direct fabrication of titanium aluminide matrix composite layers on SS41 substrates by the application of reactive low pressure plasma spraying (RLPPS) with N
2+H
2 mixed plasma gas. The Al content of mixed powders was changed in the range of 10-63mass%. Three kinds of titanium aluminides as matrices appear in the sprayed intermetallic matrix composite (IMC) layers formed with mixed powders, namely Ti
3Al, TiAl and TiAl
3, and also several kinds of nitrides as reinforcements. For example, matrices in the sprayed IMC layer with the mixed powder of 36mass%Al are mainly composed of TiAl, and small amounts of Ti
3 Al, TiAl
3 and Al phases also appear, by contrast a principal nitride in the layer is Ti
2AlN. Both TiAl and Ti
2AlN increase in amount after vacuum annealing at 1173K for 86.4ks. Micro-hardness of the as-sprayed IMC layers is higher than that of titanium aluminide layers containing no nitrides. The IMC layers with varying Al contest show the minimum room temperature hardness at about 45mass%Al. Hardness at 673K is not depend on Al content in the IMC layers, but approximately constant. Hence, it is thought that RLPPS offers one of the promised fabrication methods of IMC layers.
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