Spark plasma sintering of TiC ceramic with tungsten carbide as a sintering additive

By adding a small amount of tungsten carbide (WC) as sintering aids, nearly fully dense TiC ceramics were obtained by spark plasma sintering at 1450–1600 °C. The results show that the densification temperature of TiC ceramic was significantly decreased with the addition of 3.5 wt% WC. Compared with the monolithic TiC, the densification temperature of TiC–3.5 wt% WC is lower by ～150 °C and no deterioration of mechanical properties is observed. The TiC composite sintered at 1600 °C exhibits full density, a Vickers hardness of 28.2 ± 1.2 MPa, a flexural strength of 599.5 ± 34.7 MPa and a fracture toughness of 6.3 ± 1.4 MPa m^1/2.