Ni3Al+B Material Obtained by Mechanical Activation Followed by Spark Plasma Sintering

The paper is devoted to the study of the structure and properties of the Ni3Al intermetallic obtained by spark plasma sintering and modified with 0.2 wt.% of boron. It is shown that, in the structure of the material, in addition to the Ni3Al intermetallic, there are regions represented by a mechanical mixture. The mechanical mixture is characterized by cube-shaped nickel aluminide particles surrounded by a matrix of solid aluminum solution in nickel. These regions have a coarser morphology and are better manifested on intermetallic samples modified with boron than in similar samples without additional alloying elements. It is shown that the boron microaddition positively affects the strength and toughness of the synthesized materials. The ultimate strength increases from 400 to 720 MPa; impact strength increases from 5.3 to 14.2 J/cm(2).