Fabrication of MAX‐Phase Composites by Novel Combustion Synthesis and Spontaneous Metal Melt Infiltration: Structure and Tribological Behaviors

Abstract

This work developed and experimentally tested a new scheme for fabricating family of MAX‐metal composites. This scheme combined the combustion synthesis process to obtain a porous MAX phase skeleton and process of metal melt infiltration spontaneously, which was then used to fabricate Ti3SiC2‐TiC‐Sn and Ti3SiC2‐TiC‐(Sn‐Pb) composites. The resultant composite samples had an uneven density along the length, which steadily decreased from the point of contact of the sample with the molten tin to the opposite edge. Existence of Ti3SiC2, TiC, Sn, (Sn and Pb) phases in the composite samples were confirmed using X‐ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analyses. Comparative tribological characterization were performed on fabricated Ti3SiC2‐TiC‐Sn and Ti3SiC2‐TiC‐(Sn‐Pb) composite samples. These results were compared against standalone Sn and Sn‐Pb samples as baseline and reveal major differences in friction and wear mechanisms due to addition of select MAX‐phases via novel combustion synthesis process. As a whole, present study establishes a novel synthesis process to fabricate MAX phase composites and validates its enhanced tribological behavior and wear mechanisms which can have plethora of applications ranging from aerospace, automotive to biomedical sectors.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.