Dual-nanoparticulate-reinforced aluminum matrix composite materials

Abstract

Aluminum (Al) matrix composite materials reinforced with carbon nanotubes (CNT) and silicon carbide nanoparticles (nano-SiC) were fabricated by mechanical ball milling, followed by hot-pressing. Nano-SiC was used as an active mixing agent for dispersing the CNTs in the Al powder. The hardness of the produced composites was dramatically increased, up to eight times higher than bulk pure Al, by increasing the amount of nano-SiC particles. A small quantity of aluminum carbide (Al(4)C(3)) was observed by TEM analysis and quantified using x-ray diffraction. The composite with the highest hardness values contained some nanosized Al(4)C(3). Along with the CNT and the nano-SiC, Al(4)C(3) also seemed to play a role in the enhanced hardness of the composites. The high energy milling process seems to lead to a homogeneous dispersion of the high aspect ratio CNTs, and of the nearly spherical nano-SiC particles in the Al matrix. This powder metallurgical approach could also be applied to other nanoreinforced composites, such as ceramics or complex matrix materials.

Microstructure and Properties of Spark Plasma Sintered Aluminum Containing 1 wt.% SiC Nanoparticles

“…Hence, the hardness increase can be attributed to porosity decrease because of pressure increase. SiC is reported to prevent grain growth by pinning effect [39]. Analysis of the effect of pressure on density and hardness reveals that a pressure of 50 MPa led to the highest density and hardness in most of the cases.…”

Mechanical properties of nanodiamond and multi-walled carbon nanotubes dual-reinforced aluminum matrix composite materials

“…Because, nanosized the CNT and the nD materials are very difficult to handle and homogeneously disperse within matrix materials due to their strong van der Waals force and very fine size effect, resulting in highly agglomerated nanoparticle-reinforced composite materials. [10][11][12][13]. Moreover, there is still a lack of perfect fabrication process for the CNT and/or the nD reinforced-composite materials to use as a commercial engineering parts.…”

Effect of Heat Treatment on Al2024 Reinforcement With Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube

“…Ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of the composites (Figure 4) showed a significant increase in the tensile strength in case of sintered-heat treated composites when compared to sintered composites [26]. The increase of UTS from 81.32…”