PREPARATION AND PROPERTIES OF ALUMINIUM COMPOSITE

A composite material is the combination of two or more materials, which are having different phases and the properties superior to the base material. Aluminium matrix composite (AMCs) are emerging as advance engineering materials due to their strength, ductility and toughness. The aluminium matrix can strengthened by reinforcing with hard ceramic particles like SiC, Al2o3 , B4C etc. In this paper, an effort is made to enhance the mechanical properties like strength and hardness of aluminium matrix composite by reinforcing aluminium matrix with boron carbide particles. By powder metallurgy route, aluminium matrix has been reinforced with boron carbide particulate of 400µ sizes. The aluminium metal powder is blended with boron carbide in weight ratio of 5%wt and 10%wt. The microstructure and mechanical properties of the fabricated aluminium matrix composite has analyzed. The properties of pure aluminium formed by powder metallurgy has been compared with the properties of aluminium boron carbide formed by powder metallurgy. Based on the result obtained by the optical microstructure image reveal the homogeneous dispersion of boron carbide particles in the matrix. The reinforcement dispersion has also been identified with X-ray diffraction (XRD). The strength and hardness was found to increase with increase in wt% of the reinforcement.