Abstract

The feachures of structure and phase formation of TiC hardened Fe-based alloy at in-situ thermal synthesis from mixtures of TiH₂, Fe, graphite and Ni powders had been investigated. It was shown that after synthesis at 1200 ⁰С the structure of the alloy is a skeleton of titanium carbide grains of various shapes and sizes from 1 to 20 µm cemented with Fe-based binding substance mostly located around the titanium carbide grains. The phase composition of the obtained alloy includes mainly phases of titanium carbide and α-Fe. In the case of using the initial mixture with the Ni in the composition of the alloy along with the titanium carbide solid solution of Ni in alpha-iron and Ni-based compounds were identified. When Ni is used instead of Fe in initial powder mixture it leads to a noticeable refinement of the alloy grain structure: the size of the carbide grains is generally not more than 5-7 microns. With the decrease in Ni content in the mixture and respectively increase of iron content at the same Ti and graphite content, the particle size increases markedly and approaches with 5 % of Ni to the particle size of the alloy obtained from the mixture containing no Ni.