Pressing and Sintering of Titanium Aluminide Powder after Ball Milling in Silane-Doped Atmosphere

Due to the high specific surface area of titanium aluminide powders, significant and unavoidable surface oxidation takes place during processing. The resulting oxides disrupt the conventional powder metallurgical process route (pressing and sintering) by reducing the green strength and sintered properties. Oxide-free particle surfaces offer the potential to significantly increase particle bond strength and enable the processing of difficult-to-press material powders. In this work, the effect of milling titanium aluminide powder in a silane-doped atmosphere on the component properties after pressing and the subsequent sintering was investigated. Ball milling was used to break up the oxide layers and create bare metal surfaces on the particles. With the help of silane-doped inert gas, the oxygen partial pressure was greatly reduced during processing. It was investigated whether oxide-free surfaces could be produced and maintained by milling in silane-doped atmospheres. Furthermore, the resulting material properties after pressing and sintering were analysed using density measurements, hardness tests, EDX measurements, and micrographs. It was concluded that ball milling in a silane-doped atmosphere produces and maintains oxide-free particle surfaces. These oxide-free surfaces and smaller particle sizes improve the component properties after pressing and sintering.