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Microstructure Evolution of B4C/Al Interface: A First-Principle Study

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Abstract

The microstructure evolution of the B4C/Al interface is very complicated, which has not been fully understood yet. The main products reported in the literature works are Al-B phases (AlB2 and AlB12) or Al-B-C phases (Al3BC and AlB12C2). However, the most common Al4C3 phase in Al-C systems was rarely reported, which could not be explained by reaction thermodynamics. In the present work, the interfacial bonding evolution between B4C and Al was calculated by the thermodynamic analysis and first-principle method. According to the thermodynamic analysis, Al-B phases (AlB2 or AlB12) and Al-C phase (Al4C3) would be formed simultaneously, which was inconsistent with the experimental result. Furthermore, the first-principle calculation indicated the formation of strong chemical bond at the B4C/Al interface. The population bonding analysis revealed that the interface bonding was B-Al bond. Due to the pull of chemical bond forces, the B elements tended to be enriched at the interface, while the C element tended to be far away from the interface. Eventually, the interface-enriched B element preferentially reacted with the Al matrix to form AlB2 and AlB12 and further evolved to be Al-B-C phases (Al3BC and AlB12C2). However, the C element could not preferentially participate in the reaction.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Numbers 51871073, 51871072, 51771063, 61604086 and U1637201), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant Number 2016M590280 and 2017T100240), Heilongjiang Postdoctoral Foundation (Grant Number LBH-Z16075) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant Numbers HIT.NSRIF.20161 and HIT. MKSTISP. 201615).

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  1. Yong Mei and Boyu Ju contributed equally to this work and are co-first authors of the article

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Defense Engineering, AMS, PLA, Beijing, 100036, China

    Yong Mei

  2. State Key Laboratory of Explosion Science and Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Yong Mei & Fenglei Huang

  3. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, China

    Boyu Ju, Wenshu Yang & Gaohui Wu

  4. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Science Park, No. 2 Yikuang Street, P. O. 3023, Harbin, 150080, People’s Republic of China

    Wenshu Yang & Fenglei Huang

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  1. Yong Mei
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Correspondence to Wenshu Yang or Fenglei Huang.

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Mei, Y., Ju, B., Yang, W. et al. Microstructure Evolution of B4C/Al Interface: A First-Principle Study. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 30, 9326–9332 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-021-06079-3

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