Fabrication of hot-pressed ZrC-based composites

In this work, ZrC-based composites reinforced with SiC particles were processed using the hot-pressing route. The influence of SiC content on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the hot-pressed composites was investigated. In all composites with different SiC contents, the highest relative density was obtained for ZrC-based composite containing 20 vol% SiC, having a value of 97 per cent. The flexural strength of ZrC-based composites increased modestly from 390 to 452 MPa as the SiC content increased from 10 to 20 vol%. The increase in strength was attributed to a decrease in grain size and improvement of the relative density. But the strength did not show great variation when the content of the SiC particles increased to 30 vol%, which may be because of the inhomogeneous microstructure and the low relative density. In contrast, toughness and hardness did not vary significantly with SiC content.