Experimental investigation of mechanical and tribological properties of Aluminium metal matrix composites fabricated by powder metallurgy route – A review

Abstract

Additive manufacturing is being viewed as the future of manufacturing and is one of the most actively explored cutting edge research area in manufacturing. Powder metallurgical technique has the unique advantage of near net shape manufacturing, getting rid of finish machining processes and hence material wastage. Mechanical alloying is the solid state alloying technique that combines constituent metal powders, via powder metallurgical route, ending up with alloys that are quite comparable to traditionally manufactured alloys. Metal powders are blended with a help of ball mill to achieve a standardised distribution, prior to compaction. Hybrid metal matrix composites exhibit two different secondary phases distributed in the primary phase, exhibit interesting behaviour and are worthy to be explored in the area of composite research. This review delineates various such literatures about mechanical alloying of aluminium with different constituent alloying metals and compounds and the outcomes of such works, in comparison to traditionally fabricated alloys.