Spark plasma sintered tantalum carbide: Effect of pressure and nano-boron carbide addition on microstructure and mechanical properties

▶ Spark plasma sintering was used to synthesize 100% dense TaC and TaC-1 wt.% nano-size B4C. ▶ Addition of B4C aided densification and inhibited grain coarsening. ▶ High resolution TEM utilized to elucidate the sintering mechanism in TaC-nano B4C. ▶ Improvement in the mechanical properties was observed by B4C addition.