Fe-TiC composite powders are fabricated by planetary ball mill processing. Two kinds of powder mixtures are prepared from the starting materials of (a) (Fe, TiC) powders and (b) (Fe, TiH2, Carbon) powders. Milling speed (300, 500 and 700 rpm) and time (1, 2, and 3 h) are varied. For (Fe, TiH2, Carbon) powders, an in situ reaction synthesis of TiC after the planetary ball mill processing is added to obtain a homogeneous distribution of ultrafine TiC particulates in Fe matrix. Powder characteristics such as particle size, size distribution, shape, and mixing homogeneity are investigated. In case of (Fe, TiC) powder many coarse TiC particulates with size of several μm are unevenly distributed in Fe-matrix. The composite powder prepared from (Fe, TiH2, C) powder mixture showed a homogeneous dispersion of ulatrafine TiC particulates.

Fe-TiC composite powder was fabricated via two steps. The first step was a high-energy milling of FeO and carbon powders followed by heat treatment for reduction to obtain a (Fe+C) powder mixture. The optimal condition for high-energy milling was 500 rpm for 1h, which had been determined by a series of preliminary experiment. Reduction heat-treatment was carried out at for 1h in flowing argon gas atmosphere. Reduced powder mixture was investigated by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Field Emission-Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) and Laser Particle Size Analyser (LPSA). The second step was a high-energy milling of (Fe+C) powder mixture and additional powder, and subsequent in-situ synthesis of TiC particulate in Fe matrix through a reaction of carbon and Ti. High-energy milling was carried out at 500 rpm for 1 h. Heat treatment for reaction synthesis was carried out at for 1 h in flowing argon gas atmosphere. X-ray diffraction (XRD) results of the fabricated Fe-TiC composite powder showed that only TiC and Fe phases exist. Results from FE-SEM observation and Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectros-copy (EDS) revealed that TiC phase exists uniformly dispersed in the Fe matrix in a form of particulate with a size of submicron.