Microstructure and Properties of TiCp/Fe Hierarchical Composites Prepared by a New Pressure Infiltration Method

TiCp/steel composites are conventionally produced via powder metallurgy. In this paper, a liquid pressure infiltration method was developed to prepare a kind of spherical hierarchical architectured composite, in which spherical TiCp-rich hard phase regions were uniformly dispersed in TiCp-free soft phase region. The microstructure and mechanical properties of the architectured composites were carefully studied and compared with the common composite, as well as the effect of TiCp fraction on the properties. The results show that architecturual design can effectively improve both the toughness and strength of the composites. With TiCp content increasing from 30% to 50%, both the bending strength and the impact toughness of the architectured composites first increase, then decrease, and reach the highest at 40% TiCp. The highest impact toughness reaches 21.2 J/cm2, being 6.2 times that of the common composite and the highest strength being 67% higher. The pressure infiltration method possesses adaptability to varying shapes and sizes of the products, allowing for large-scale preparation. Therefore, for the first time, the combination of pressure infiltration preparation and architectural design was applied to TiCp/steel composites.