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DESIGN, ASSEMBLY AND CHARACTERIZATION OF COMPOSITE ...

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volume fraction may cause variations in sintered microstructure. Porosity is common in<br />

pressureless sintered composites of this kind, as the temperature profile can hardly<br />

optimize sintering kinetics for both phases to allow complete pore exclusion; the result is<br />

that many pores are trapped within the composite.<br />

A plot of hardness as a function of composition is given in Figure 5.7.<br />

Extrapolation of the linear-fit for the hardness data suggests that pure nickel and barium<br />

titanate have a Vickers hardness number of 99 and 387 respectively. These two hardness<br />

values are slightly lower than the Ni hardness VPN 120 measured in Chapter 4 and<br />

external reported hardness value for BT 164 VPN 400 in a BT-Ag composite. The lower<br />

value here may be ascribed to the porosity in these composites that contributes to the total<br />

plastic deformation of the test specimens. Figure 5.8 shows optical micrographs of the<br />

polished cross sections of sintered composite cylindrical rods for hardness test.<br />

Table 5.2 Measured Hardness and density of BT/Ni composites.<br />

20BT80Ni 40BT60Ni 60BT40Ni 80BT20Ni<br />

Vickers Hardness (VPN) 164 221 235 351<br />

Standard Deviation (VPN) 2 3 12 26<br />

Theoretical Density (g/cm3) 8.316 7.725 7.133 6.542<br />

Archimedes Density (g/cm3) 7.868 7.431 6.475 6.067<br />

Relative Density 0.946 0.962 0.908 0.928<br />

154

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