Corrosion and tribocorrosion behaviour of Ti-B4C composites processed by conventional sintering and hot-pressing technique

Abstract

In this work, low volume reinforcement ex-situ Ti-B4C composites were produced using two different routes: conventional powder metallurgy (PM) and hot-pressing (HP). The effect of reinforcement phases and processing method on corrosion and tribocorrosion behaviour were studied. Composites processed by PM lost the typical passive behaviour of Ti matrix, while composites processed by HP presented similar behaviour to unreinforced Ti. Tribocorrosion tests showed that both composite groups presented two times decrease in corrosion kinetics under sliding compared to pure titanium. An antagonistic effect between wear and corrosion was observed for composites with at least two times decrease in wear volume compared to titanium. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.