The combustion of titanium powder in air and iron oxide

The quest for ever stronger and tougher steels has lead to an interest in the 'Acicular Ferrite' microstructure, its chaotic and disordered morphology imparting a high degree of toughness to the steel. To date, only complex and expensive materials and manufacturing processes have formed acicular ferrite within bulk cast steel. As such, the thrust of this research is to produce a cheap steel addition, an iron - titanium oxide metal-ceramic composite, that will facilitate the formation of acicular ferrite in conventionally manufactured bulk cast steels. The Self-propagating High-temperature Synthesis (SHS) process has been utilised to manufacture the iron - titanium oxide material from compacts pressed from Fe203 + Ti powders. The fundamental reactions that occur as titanium powder and Fe203 + Ti powder compacts are heated in air and argon atmospheres have been investigated. The process’s involved are reported and have been modelled mathematically. A computer simulation of the reaction process has been developed and tested against experimental evidence. The effect of various compact parameters, the starting compact stoichiometry and other processing variables have been examined with respect to the composition of the products and their morphology.