Possibility of electric-pulse sintering of powder nanostructural composites

The activities described in the paper are aimed at solving the problem of forming various articles from homogeneous metallic powders of copper and molybdenum, from a mixture of copper, titanium, and boron powders, and from a mixture of the copper powder with uniformly distributed particles of titanium diboride (up to 40 vol.%). The idea is to obtain compacts with the minimumchanges in the initial structure of the material and with high resistance to electric erosion under conditions of high currents. A method of electric-pulse sintering is used, where the compacting process is ensured with one capacitor discharge with a current density of $\le$10$^3$ A/mm$^2$ and sintering time of $\le$10$^{-4}$ sec. Conditions of sintering of powders pre-compressed by a pressure of several kilobars are studied. The density, microstructure, and phase composition of the sintered samples are examined. The erosion resistance of a Cu/TiB$_2$ porous nanostructural composite is tested on a model erosive plasma accelerator.