First-principles Analysis of SiC/Al Composites Interface

Qipeng Wang,Junlei Shi

doi:10.11648/j.ijfmts.20190504.11

Abstract

The interface of SiCp/Al composites is an important factor affecting the properties of materials, Different interface layers have different interface bonding strengths, which have different effects on the properties of SiCp/Al composites. In this paper, the possible binding energy of interface in SiCp/Al composites is studied, then the influence of the interfacial binding energy on the SiCp/Al composites is analyzed, and the method of controlling the interface of SiCp/Al composites is proposed. Firstly, three interface models that may exist in SiCp/Al composites were constructed in Material Studio software, and the model structure was optimized, then the first-principles simulation of the optimized interfaces model of SiCp/Al composites was carried out, and the interfacial bonding energy of SiC-Al, SiC-SiO2-Al and SiC-Al2O3-Al was calculated respectively. The order of the interfacial binding energy was: SiC(100)-Al(100) < SiC(100)-SiO2 (100)-Al(100) < SiC(100)-Al2O3 (100)-Al(100). It can be known from the simulation results that the interfacial bonding energy of the interface layer containing the oxide is large, since the oxide can improve the wettability between the matrix and the reinforcement. Therefore, in order to obtain a well-bonded SiCp/Al composite, the SiC particles are usually surface-modified to regulate the interface of the SiCp/Al composite. Thereby, the SiCp/Al composite material with high interface bonding strength and excellent performance is obtained.

Highlights

SiCp/Al composite material is a kind of material with high specific strength, large specific modulus, good thermal conductivity, good electrical conductivity, small thermal expansion coefficient, good dimensional stability, good wear resistance [1,2,3,4,5,6] etc
Luo [20] et al carried out molecular dynamics simulation of the interface of Al-SiC formed by three kinds of low-index surfaces of SiC/Al composites (100), (110) and (111), and calculated bonding energy and the experimental values are consistent
The interface structure of SiCp/Al composites such as SiC-Al, SiC-SiO2-Al and SiC-Al2O3-Al was established by Materials Studio (MS) software

Summary

Introduction

SiCp/Al composite material is a kind of material with high specific strength, large specific modulus, good thermal conductivity, good electrical conductivity, small thermal expansion coefficient, good dimensional stability, good wear resistance [1,2,3,4,5,6] etc It has a wide range of applications in aerospace, electronic packaging, marine, automotive, precision instruments [7,8,9,10,11,12,13] etc. Luo [20] et al carried out molecular dynamics simulation of the interface of Al-SiC formed by three kinds of low-index surfaces of SiC/Al composites (100), (110) and (111), and calculated bonding energy and the experimental values are consistent. The interface of SiC-Al, SiC-SiO2-Al, SiC-Al2O3-Al in SiCp/Al composites was established by MS software, and the first-principles simulation was carried out. The interface of the maximum bonding energy of SiCp/Al composites can be found

Model Construction

Model Optimization and Calculation

Results and Analysis

Conclusion