Positron annihilation and tribological studies of nano-embedded Al alloys

Abstract

Positron annihilation studies of aluminium alloys with nanodispersions of insoluble elements, i.e., In, Sn, Pb and Au were reported. The alloys were obtained using a rapid solidification process. For all alloys, except that with Au, the average diameter of nanoparticles in aluminium matrix was 100 nm, and variance of the size distribution was above 50 nm. Positron annihilation studies reveal the presence of monovacancies or divacancies, which were located at the interface between nanoparticles and the matrix. In the as-cast reference pure aluminium sample as well as the aluminium and gold alloy dislocations were identified as well. The isothermal annealing of the obtained alloys and measurement of the annihilation characteristic, i.e., S-parameter, allow us to determine the activation energy of grain boundary migration, which for the alloys was higher by the factor of four than for the reference sample. The measurements of friction parameters for the alloys confirmed the results reported by the other authors that, the friction coefficient was lower by the factor of about two and the specific wear rate was by the factor of about fifty higher than the reference sample. The present study confirmed the attractive positron affinity of the nanoparticles of In, Sn, Pb and Au compared to aluminium matrix.