Accumulative roll bonding behavior of Al8011/SiC metal matrix nanocomposites

Abstract

The present work describes the accumulative roll bonding (ARB) behavior of aluminum 8011 alloy reinforced with SiC nanoparticles. Two sets of experiments were performed. In the first set, commercial pure aluminum 8011 alloy sheet added with 1 wt% of SiC nanoparticles was subjected to ARB process upto three cycles. In the second set, heat treated Al8011/SiC metal matrix nanocomposites were subjected to ARB process upto three cycles. The properties like tensile strength and micro hardness of heat treated ARBed Al8011/SiC nanocomposites were compared with non-heat treated Al8011/SiC nanocomposites. As the number of ARB cycle increases, tensile strength and microhardness increases. Heat treatment process tends to increase the tensile strength of ARBed samples. Scanning electron microscopy results show the reduction in grain size of the ARBed nanocomposite samples.