Densification mechanism and mechanical properties of oscillatory pressure sintered Al 2 O 3 -Ti(C,N) composite

The emerging oscillatory pressure sintering technology is used to prepare high-performance Al 2 O 3 -Ti(C,N) ceramic tools for high-speed cutting. By recording the displacement during sintering, the sintering shrinkage rate of the Al 2 O 3 -Ti(C,N) composite was calculated, and the stress exponent n and sintering activation energy Q were calculated according to creep theory to determine the densification mechanism. In addition, the evolution of phases, microstructure and hardness of the composite was also observed. Results show that during oscillatory pressure sintering process at 1400 °C and 1300 °C, the stress exponent of Al 2 O 3 -Ti(C,N) composite is around 2.2 and the sintering activation energy is 486 kJ mol −1 , indicating that the densification mechanism is a diffusion-controlled grain boundary sliding of Al 2 O 3 phase. Additionally, as the oscillatory pressure increases, the average grain size of the Al 2 O 3 decreases and the Vickers hardness increases. Hardness achieves the highest 22.7 GPa when the median oscillatory pressure is 70 MPa at 1400 °C, which is 1 GPa higher than that of static pressure of 70 MPa.