Peculiarities of Self-Propagating High-Temperature Synthesis and Structure Formation of TiB2-Al2O3 and CrB2-Al2O3 Composites

Preparation of TiB2-Al2O3 and CrB2-Al2O3 composites with a broad range of phase composition was conducted by self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) involving reaction of different types. The formation of fibrous crystals of aluminum oxide with length of about 10-25 microns and with diameter of 200-500 nm at self-propagating high-temperature synthesis in the system 2B2O3-Cr2O3-6A1 was established. Thermite mixtures of Al-TiO2 and Al-TiO2-B2O3 were incorporated with the Ti-B combustion system to produce the composites of TiB2-Al2O3, within which the increase of the thermite mixture for a higher content of Al2O3 decreased the reaction temperature and combustion wave velocity. This implies that the thermite reaction of Al with TiO2 reduces the exothermicity of the overall SHS process. It was found that adoption of B2O3 as one of the thermite reagents improved the product formation effectively. For investigate the combustion wave in 0.75TiO2-0.25Ti-2B-Al system the «quenching» method was used. The XRD analysis shows that the final products containing diborides and aluminium oxide.