Evaluation of the sinterability, densification behaviour and microhardness of spark plasma sintered multiwall carbon nanotubes reinforced Ti6Al4V nanocomposites

Structural and industrial demands for lightweight engineering materials with exclusive properties have been rising in recent decades for automobile and aerospace applications. This has encouraged various innovations in materials engineering communities to synthesis advanced engineering materials using improved fabrication technique such as spark plasma sintering (SPS). In this study, titanium-based nanocomposites were synthesized by reinforcing Ti6Al4V reinforced with (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 wt%) multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) powders. The starting powders were blended by shift-speed ball milling. Thereafter, SPS technique was used to consolidate the admixed powders by employing the following sintering parameters; sintering rate, 100 °C/min, compressive pressure, 50 MPa, holding time, 10 min and sintering temperatures of 900–1100 °C. The influence of MWCNT additions on the sinterability, densification behaviours and microhardness of the sintered nanocomposites were investigated. The results revealed that the densification of the sintered nanocomposites was in the range of 97.51–99.61% which decreased with an increase in concentration of the MWCNT. Meanwhile, the densification and microhardness improved tremendously with an increase in sintering temperatures.