The effect of milling time on aluminum-silicon carbide composite

Abstract

Silicon carbide particle reinforced aluminum matrix composites have been developed over past few decades, owing to their excellent properties like light weight, wear resistance and high elastic modulus. Thus, the silicon carbide particle reinforced aluminum matrix composites are expected to have many applications in aerospace, automobile, aircraft and electronic industries. In this study, aluminum metal matrix composites contains two weight percentages of reinforcement particles were prepared by mechanical alloying. The main steps in mechanical alloying are milling, compacting and sintering. The experiments were performed on two composition of silicon carbide powder in the composite. The study presents the results of the influence of milling time on aluminum- silicon carbide composite and the effect of different weight percentage of silicon carbide in composite on hardness and microstructure of the composite. Aluminum and silicon carbide particles are mixed of different milling times 0, 40, 80, 120 minute. Digital image analyzer was used to characterize the composites. The effect of weight percentage of silicon carbide on hardness of composites was investigated by using Vickers hardness Test. Hardness of the composites increased with increasing silicon carbide addition in it.