Fabrication and Characteristic Evaluation for Clay Tile Composites Reinforced with Flaky Nickel-Chromium Alloy Particles

Abstract

The flake-forming behavior of Ni-Cr alloy powders during a wet ball milling process and the effect of volume percent of flaky Ni-Cr alloy particles on three-point flexural strength and fracture toughness of clay tile composites reinforced with flaky Ni-Cr alloy particles have been investigated. The flexural strength and fracture toughness of composites can be simultaneously improved by increasing the volume percent of flaky Ni-Cr alloy particles. The SEM observations indicates that the improvement in fracture toughness may be attributed to plastic deformation of flaky Ni-Cr alloy particles at crack tip. Fabricating composites reinforced with flaky Ni-Cr alloy particles is an effective toughening technique capable of simultaneously improving the strength and toughness of brittle materials by utilizing plastic deformation of ductile phase. The volume resistance of the clay tile/30%flaky Ni-Cr alloy particle composites is 7.5×10-2 Ω·cm, which is larger than that of Ni-Cr (JIS NCH-1) (1.1×10-4 Ω·cm). The resistance temperature coefficient of the composite is almost the same as that of Ni-Cr (JIS NCH-1). The composite is therefore promising candidate as resistance materials.