Effect of boron addition on microstructure and mechanical properties of TiC/Ti6Al4V composites

Highlights: ► TiC/Ti6Al4V composites were fabricated by using the in situ melting–casting process. ► The microstructure and mechanical properties of the composites were investigated. ► It showed the addition of boron refined the TiC dendrite and influenced the mechanical properties. ► The reasons of refinement of TiC dendrite and change of wear property were explained. -- Abstract: TiC/Ti6Al4V composites with different boron additions were successfully fabricated, and the effects of the boron content on the microstructure, mechanical properties of composites were investigated. The results show that the dendritic TiC in the composites is remarkably refined when the boron content is less than 0.06 wt.%. The average primary axial length of TiC dendrite is decreased from 150 μm to 50 μm according to the increasing of the boron content from 0.01 wt.% to 0.06 wt.%. And TiC dendrite gradually changes from the coarse dendrite to the fine dendrite or granular, but the abrasive property is obviously reduced with the increase of boron content. On the other hand, when the boron content further increases from 0.1 wt.% to 0.6 wt.%, the dendritic TiC can not be refined obviously, the fiber-shape TiB begins to appear and the abrasive property of composites is improved. The compressive strength and hardness (HRC) of composites are obviously increased in the whole addition range. The refinement mechanism of boron is attributed to the combined effects of the increase in nucleation rate at the constitutionally supercooled zone in front of the solid–liquid interface and the reduction in growth rate of TiC. The improvement of its abrasive property is mainly attributed to the existence of large size TiC and fiber-shape TiB during the abrasion.