Hot forging of melt quenched powder: Microstructure development and kinetics of densification

Hot powder forging is a new process for making scalable and cost-effective nanocrystalline ceramics. It utilizes powder typically between 5 mum to 25 mum to nucleate very stable crystallite sizes well below 100 nm. These particles superplastically deform at relatively moderate temperature and stress. Hence, rapid densification at high creep rates is achieved with limited grain growth.;A novel way to achieve high creep rate is to take advantage of partially amorphous powders that are obtained by one of the many available rapid quenching processes. Our study uses a plasma flame to melt the spray-dried aggregates of a particular composition and rapidly quench into water that results in metastable, optically transparent powder. The plasma sprayed powder is first hot pressed to obtain cylindrical pellets and then hot-forged at various stresses and temperatures to obtain optimum creep rates.;Eutectic oxide compositions were studied due to their low melting point and better glass forming ability in an effort to optimize both the composition and processing parameters. Five binary compositions of alumina, zirconia and magnesium aluminate spinel and the effect of adding borosilicate glass on creep rates and microstructure were investigated. Their phase evolution and crystallite growth were examined in a detailed annealing study.;The final densities after hot forging were composition dependent and ranged from 86% to 100% at 1350°C. Creep rates of the binary eutectic increased by an order of magnitude when alumina was substituted with spinel or when borosilicate glass was added. The highest creep rate obtained would correspond to 10-4 1/s for 40 MPa at 1350°C. SEM studies confirm that the densification is by plastic deformation of particles. TEM studies reveal nano-sized zirconia either in an alumina or spinel matrix. The grain morphology was cellular in compositions without glass and acicular in compositions with glass.