Surface Modification of Al Components Using Spark Plasma Sintering

Abstract

A strong push has been observed in the automotive industry to replace current components with high-performance and lightweight materials such as aluminum alloys. Novel monolithic materials such as bulk nanostructured materials, cannot always offer the best performance in hostile environments and often have high manufacturing costs. This has required the development and engineering of processes to allow nanostructured surface functionalization of conventional materials. This processing strategy, similar to the metal-ceramic joining approach, exploits the advantages of both materials while reducing overall manufacturing costs. Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) will be evaluated as potential a method for manufacturing a nanostructured Al-Si cladding. This novel coating method has a significant advantage over traditional processes in that it forms metallurgical bonds at both the interface and throughout the deposited layer to produce a coating with isotropic properties. The objective of this work is to create a nanostructured eutectic Al-Si feedstock powder and simultaneously consolidate and clad the powder onto a forged aluminum substrate using Spark Plasma Sintering. Results show that after mechanical milling, the aluminum grain size was refined to 47nm. The results also show that SPS is capable of sintering the powder in extremely short sintering times while maintaining nanostructure, and that the heating rate has a large effect on increasing densification rates. Mechanical properties of the resultant coating were also investigated.