Synthesis of TiN/AlON composite ceramics

The synthesis process of TiN/AlON composite ceramics was studied, the thermodynamics, mechanical properties and micro-structures of TiN/AlON have also been investigated. The TiN/AlON composite ceramics has been synthesized by both hot-pressing and pressureless sintering. The characterizations of the material synthesized were analyzed with XRD (X-ray diffraction) and TEM (transmission electronic microscope). The density and toughness strength of TiN/AlON are 3.57g/cm³ and 4.74MPa·m^1/2, respectively. The bending strength was measured at both room temperature and high temperatures and the results are 399 MPa (room temperature), 406 MPa (1 073 K), 417 MPa (1 273 K) and 323 MPa (1 573 K). Pattern Recognition (PR) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) were used to optimize the parameters and to predict the expected values. A proper parameter for pressureless sintering of TiN/AlON has been obtained and testified, the parameters are temperature (1 978 K), AlN / (AlN + Al₂O₃) ratio (0.22), MgO (4.7%) and TiO₂ (7.2%).