Advanced Materials for Emerging Applications (Innovations, Improvements, Inclusion and Impact)

Enhancing the Strength of Aluminum-Boron Carbide Composites to a High Degree by Magnesium Addition for Use in Automotive Applications

Author(s): Ramasis Goswami*, Syed Bermullah Qadri and Chandra Shekar Pande

Pp: 298-321 (24)

DOI: 10.2174/9789815196771124010013

* (Excluding Mailing and Handling)

Abstract

We report here a significant enhancement of the hardness of aluminumboron carbide composites by the addition of magnesium. Reactive sintering between boron carbide and aluminum-magnesium occurs by the application of heat and pressure and during subsequent annealing at high-homologous temperatures of the matrix. In this case, the deformation-induced plastic yielding enables the incorporation and dispersion of hard particles in aluminum-matrix. We examine the decomposition behavior of boron carbide at high-homologous temperatures in contact with magnesium and aluminum, and observe the interfacial, aluminum-magnesium-boride, AlMgB4 , and aluminum-boro-carbide, Al3BC, phases at boron carbide/matrix interfaces as revealed by the high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. We demonstrate that the hardness of these composites has been enhanced by two to five folds as compared to the base alloy and the existing aluminum-boron carbide composites. The addition of magnesium improves interfacial cohesion significantly between the matrix and ceramic particles as a result of interfacial boride phase, and primarily contributes to the enhancement of strength. This provides a novel method of developing aluminum-based high strength composites. 


Keywords: Aluminum alloys, Boron carbide and transmission electron microscopy, Interfaces, Microstructure, Metal matrix composites.

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