Mechanical and Physical Properties of Al/CNT/hBN Hybrid Composites produced via Powder Metallurgy and Hot-Rolling Techniques

Abstract

The current work discusses the development and characterization of Al/CNT/hBN hybrid composites using the powder metallurgy technique. This work aims to explore the synergistic effects of combining CNTs and h-BN in the Al matrix to improve the mechanical and physical properties of the resulting composites. The experimental procedures for producing the hybrid composites involve incorporating CNTs and hBN into the Al matrix at specific concentrations and coating the surfaces of the reinforcements with Ag/Ni via electroless deposition to en-hance the bonding between the matrix and reinforcements. The pure Al sample and its hybrid composites were initially produced using the powder metallurgy technique and then applying the hot-rolling process. The results involve the characterization of the produced pure Al sample and its hybrid composites (sintered and hot-rolling samples), including their me-chanical and physical properties. The main findings are that the hot-rolled Al/CNT/hBN hybrid composites exhibit improved mechanical and physical properties compared to other sintered and hot-rolled samples. The results showed that applying the hot-rolling process improved the densification and hardness of Al and its hybrid composite of Al/CNTs/h-BN. The relative densities of sintered and hybrid composite samples revealed a high densification of over 95%. The hardness improved to approximately 108%, 38%, and 23% compared to the sintered Al, hot-rolled Al and sintered Al/CNTs/h-BN samples.