Fabrication of ZrO2/Mo-Si/Ni Functionally Graded Material by Dip-Coating

A slurry dip-coating technique was developed for fabrication of ZrO2/Mo-Si/Ni functionally graded material (FGM)on the stainless steel substrate. The rheological behavior of ZrO2-Ni-ethanol slurry was characterized by viscositytest. The amount of polyvinyl butyral (PVB) additives, which served as the dispersant and binder in ZrO2-Ni-ethanolslurry, was optimized. The results showed that the characters of mixed slurries with added 9 vol. pct (relativelyto total powders) MoSi2 powders prepared by mechanical alloying changed little. The stainless steel substrate wascoated several times by dipping in the slurries, and followed by drying in air every dipping. After debinding in Arin graphite die, the coated FGM plate was finally hot pressed at 1300℃ for 1 h under the pressure of 5 MPa in Arin the same die. Microstructural observations of the sintered FGM specimens revealed that the graded layers wereformed on the stainless steel substrate, in which no cracks were observed.