Preparation of strong and ductile pure titanium via two-step rapid sintering of TiH₂ powder

The present work demonstrates the feasibility of preparing bulk-Ti, with high strength and good ductility, via spark plasma sintering of TiH₂ powders. The microstructure and mechanical properties of bulk titanium prepared under two different processing conditions, i.e. (i) Simultaneous dehydrogenation and sintering under one-step spark plasma sintering (SPS), and (ii) dehydrogenation in vacuum followed by Spark Plasma Sintering i.e. two-step SPS, are presented and discussed. The one-step sintering process, i.e. process (i), resulted in Ti specimens with very high tensile strength, but poor ductility. On the other hand, two-step sintering process, i.e. process (ii), resulted in bulk Ti with high strength and high ductility.