Process For Controlling The Microstructural Bias Of Multi-phase Composites

Abstract

A process for controlling and thus predicting the microstructural bias of multi-phase composites to obtain preferential positioning of the component compounds in their morphology and position in the resulting microstructure to cause the grains of a first phase either to locate at the grain boundaries of a second phase, or to be homogeneously distributed in the second phase using both conventional manually mixing and advanced self-propagating high-temperature processing technologies. A process whereby a lower cost composite material performs comparably to a more expensive monolithic nature of higher performance material by causing the higher performance first phase grains to preferentially locate at the grain boundaries of the second phase during densification/fusing. A process to optimize the performance properties by preferentially biasing the microstructure to cause the phase which intrinsically has the preferred properties to influence and enhance the desired properties of the bulk composite material.