3.2. Differential thermal analysis of Cu–Ti–B4C systemThe DTA experiments were conducted to understand the igni-tion behavior. Actually, although the reaction in the DTA apparatuswas different from the SHS reaction because of the disparity in theprocessing conditions, particularly for the heating rate and greendensity of the reactants, it is very similar to the ignition processand important to help understand the ignition behavior in the SHSreaction. For DTA studies, 40 mg reactant mixtures of the 40 wt.%Cu–Ti–B4C system were heated at 40◦C/min to reach 1200◦C underan argon atmosphere in the DTA apparatus. Fig. 3a shows the typi-cal DTA curve of the reactant mixtures heated to 1200◦C. It can beseen that two intense exothermic peaks presented at about 987◦Cand 1063◦C.