Fabrication and wear behavior of TiC/TiB2-reinforced NiAl intermetallic matrix composites

Combustion synthesis (CS) is a well-known technique for manufacturing intermetallic compounds and intermetallic-matrix composite materials. This research focuses on fabricating NiAl-matrix composites with varying TiC/TiB2 contents as reinforcement, achieved by the combustion synthesis method. The chemical reactions that yield the final NiAl-TiC-TiB2 compounds were interpreted using thermodynamic calculations. The phase analysis and morphology of the composites were investigated using X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) characterization techniques, respectively. The findings demonstrate that the NiAl matrix contains evenly distributed TiC-TiB2 ceramic-based particles, and no oxidation of reactants occurred during the combustion reaction. With an increase in the TiC-TiB2 reinforcement phases from 0 to 15 Wt. %, the hardness of the NiAl-TiC-TiB2 product significantly rose from 496 to 1015 Vickers, while the porosity increased from 24% to 39%, attributed to the reduced quantity of melted NiAl available to fill the pores. Examining tribological behavior in synthesized composites involved combining experimental-numerical methods, utilizing sliding wear tests and artificial neural network (ANN) modeling. The wear results revealed decreasing wear rates with reduced loads (from 35 N to 25, and 15 N) and higher TiC/TiB2 ceramic content. Iron traces at C0 and C10 worn samples were 2.47 and 26.18 Wt. % respectively, which indicates enhanced hardness. The experimental data were used to train and test an artificial neural network (ANN) and statistical analysis revealed a remarkable accuracy of 91% for the ANN model in predicting friction coefficients within SHS-processed composites, as indicated by the R2 value of 0.91 and a MAPE of 6.47.