Review on properties of aluminium metal matrix composites

Abstract

Nowadays, the global industries producing mechanical components are moving towards the usage of composites to reduce weight at the same time without compromising with characteristics of the material being used. This new combination of material provides specific desired properties when combined with various reinforcement materials like SiC, B4C, Al2O3, MgO etc., It is widely used in various industries like aerospace, automobile and marine industries. This property specific tailorable metal matrix composite with Al7075 as the base material can be fabricated using various techniques such as stir casting, high end ball milling, ultrasonic assisted casting, powder metallurgy, squeeze casting friction stir casting etc., out of which stir casting method is preferred by many researchers as stir casting method is seen to provide better distribution of reinforcement particles throughout the metal matrix. It is evident from the research of various authors that when the base material Al7075 is reinforced with the above-mentioned ceramic, it is found that there is a decrease in density and increase in hardness, compressive strength and wear resistance. Here, both physical and mechanical behaviour of aluminium reinforced composites with the effect of the particle size changes, effects after reinforcement and other processing and fabrication methods have been discussed.