Pacific Rim Symposium on Surfaces, Coatings and Interfaces (PacSurf 2014)
    Nanomaterials Wednesday Sessions
       Session NM-WeM

Paper NM-WeM9
Nanoparticles-Reinforced Aluminum Matrix Composite Materials Fabricated by Powder Technology

Wednesday, December 10, 2014, 10:40 am, Room Hau

Session: Nano Composites
Presenter: SeungjinKim Kim, Pukyong National University, Republic of Korea
Authors: S. Kim, Pukyong National University, Republic of Korea
K. Kim, Pukyong National University, Republic of Korea
J. Cho, Pukyong National University, Republic of Korea
S. Cho, Korea Institute of Materials Science, Republic of Korea
M. Leparoux, Empa, Switzerland
H. Kwon, Pukyong National University, Republic of Korea
Correspondent: Click to Email
Nanosized silicon carbide (nSiC) particles were used as a solid mixing agent in order to homogeneously well dispersion of the carbon nanotubes (CNT) in the aluminum (Al) powders by a high energy ball milling process. The CNT-nSiC-Al composite powder was prepared depending on different milling times of 10, 30, 60, 180, and 360 min. The nSiC particles were well infiltrated into the CNT agglomerations and induced physical separation of the CNTs. Another expected advantage of nanoparticle mixing agents is that no necessary to remove the mixing agent after bulk fabrication, because they are also can be offered fine-particle-strengthening effect. The powder particle size and morphology showed differently depending on the process times. A lot of flaky morphology of the Al particles was observed until 60 min milled one. However, relatively spherical shapes of the Al powder particles were observed over 180 min milled conditions. It is estimated that morphology of the Al powder particles which is highly affected to final materials properties can be controlled by controlling milling times. The composite powders have been sintered by spark plasma sintering (SPS) process. The SPSed composite materials were characterized based on microstructure, hardness, crystallite, and defect rate of the CNT in the composites. The SPSed flaky-composite powders showed lower relative density (around 98%) than the SPSed spherical-composite powder which was fully densified. However, the Vickers hardness of the SPSed spherical-composite powders were showed almost three times higher values than the SPSed flaky-composite powders. It means that the morphology of powder particles is significantly affected to the hardness of composite materials. However, we believe that the nanoparticle mixing agent could be used for CNT-reinforced composite materials system.