Investigation of microstructure, texture and mechanical properties of Al–Al2O3–B4C composite produced by accumulative roll bonding (ARB) process

Abstract

In this study, accumulative roll bonding process was used to manufacture an aluminum matrix composite dispersed with anodized alumina and boride carbide particles. The anodizing and accumulative roll bonding processes are used in this paper for manufacturing high-strength and highly-uniform composites. Furthermore, the microstructure evolution, mechanical properties and deformation texture of the composite samples are reported. The results illustrated that when the number of cycles was increased, the distribution of reinforcement particles in the aluminum matrix improved, and the particles became finer. The microstructure of the fabricated composites after eight cycles of the accumulative roll bonding process showed an excellent distribution of reinforcement particles in the aluminum matrix. During process, it was observed that as the strain increased with the number of cycles, the tensile strength, microhardness and elongation of produced composites increased as well. After tensile tests fracture surfaces were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to investigate the failure mechanism. The results indicated that after accumulative roll bonding process, the overall texture intensity increases and a wholly-different-strong texture develops. The main textural components the Rotated Cube component.