Design and Fabrication of a Nanoamorphous Interface Layer in B₄C/Al Composites to Improve Hot Deformability and Corrosion Resistance

In this paper, to improve the hot deformability and corrosion resistance, a nanoamorphous B2O3 layer was designed and fabricated between B4C particles and an Al matrix successfully. The B4C@B2O3/Al composites were prepared by a hot-pressed sintering method. By contrast, the B4C/Al composites were synthesized using the same preparation method. The results show that the existence of an amorphous layer can effectively inhibit the formation of Al3BC, AlB12, and other reaction products at the interface, compared with B4C/Al composites. At the same time, the existence of an amorphous B2O3 layer can reduce the maximum deformation resistance of the composites under the compression conditions of 500 °C and 0.001 s-1, to about 76% lower than that of the B4C/Al composites, and improve the hot deformability significantly. Furthermore, the corrosion current density of B4C@B2O3/Al composites is 82.5% lower than that of the B4C/Al composites. The good corrosion resistance makes B4C@B2O3/Al composites a potential neutron shielding material.