Pressure‐enhanced densification of TaC ceramics during flash spark plasma sintering

Abstract

Abstract Flash spark plasma sintering ( FSPS ) offers extremely high heating rates to consolidate ceramics at a short time. However, significant grain growth sometimes occurs accompanied by rapid densification. In this work, a FSPS apparatus available for applying pressure was used to sinter TaC ceramics from powder compacts without preheating. It is found that the use of a higher pressure can efficiently promote densification and retard significant grain growth. Dense bulk TaC ceramics (95.18%) with average grain size of 4.09 μm were obtained in 90 seconds under 80 MP a. Such a process should facilitate the fast preparation of refractory ceramics with fine‐grained microstructure.