Formation of Titanium Carbide MMC and Modelling the Chemical Effect on Powder Density for Additive Manufacturing
Titanium carbide has developed into an exceptional reinforcement contender in Aluminium Matrix Composites (AMCs) because of its greater characteristics such as elevated hardness, elevated elastic modulus, low heat conductivity, and constancy at moderately elevated temperatures. Furthermore, it is consequently selected as the reinforcing segment in AMCs because of its good thermodynamic and wettability stability inside the aluminium melt pool. In this work, titanium carbide powder was mixed to distinguish AlSi<sub>10</sub>Mg strengthening by the additive manufacturing (AM) process in the category of powder bed identified as Powder Bed Fusion (PBF). The objective of the study was to have homogeneously mixed powders for processing on the reinforcement of AlSi<sub>10</sub>Mg with TiC. Different characterisation procedures were carried out, such as scanning electron microscope energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), pycnometry, and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The advancement of powder density from 2.65 to 2.72 g/cm<sup>3</sup> and surface area from 0.02 to 0.14 m<sup>2</sup>/g was accomplished. The modelling findings concurred that the addition of Ti and C increases the density of the alloy, with Ti contributing more to AlSi than C. It was deduced that with Ti and C added to the system, the bulk modulus increases, with Al<sub>6</sub>Si<sub>8</sub>TiC having the largest value of 80.34 GPa.
Authors
- Busisiwe J. Mfusi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4211-9571)
- Rosinah Modiba (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6090-0957)
- H. Bisset
- Ntombizodwa R. Mathe
- Patricia A. I. Popoola
Institutions
- Tshwane University of Technology (ZA)
- Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (ZA)
- South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (South Africa) (ZA)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Materials
- Published
- 2026-02-13
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3390/ma19040715
- Primary Topic
- Aluminum Alloys Composites Properties
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg
- Tshwane University of Technology