Taguchi analysis on the effect of hot pressing parameters on density and hardness of zirconium diboride

• A Taguchi methodology was used to improve the processing of ZrB2.
• ANOVA recognized hot pressing temperature as the most consequential factor.
• The experimental results were in harmony with the expected values.
• A relative density of 93% and a hardness of 13.5 GPa were obtained at optimal state.

The influence of process parameters on density and hardness of monolithic zirconium diboride ceramic, during hot pressing, has been investigated. This paper publicizes a design of experiment approach, Taguchi methodology, used to improve the processing of ZrB2 concentrated upon three sintering parameters: temperature, dwell time and pressure. An L9 orthogonal array procedure, involves nine experiments for three factors with three levels, which comprises the signal to noise ratio and analysis of variance was employed to optimize the hot pressing parameters. The “higher is better” condition was selected as the quality characteristic. The statistical analysis recognized consolidating temperature as the most consequential factor affecting the relative density and hardness of ZrB2. A relative density of ~ 93% was obtained with a temperature of 1850 °C, dwell time of 90 min and pressure of 16 MPa. The Vickers hardness of ZrB2 reached ~ 13.5 GPa at optimal hot pressing conditions. The confirmation tests, carried out under optimum conditions, revealed that the experimental results were in harmony with the expected values from the Taguchi model.