Structure, phase content and mechanical properties of aluminium with hard particles after shock-wave compaction

The possibilities to combine metal and metal oxide powders in various compositions open a broad range of mechanical and thermal behavior. When using in nanostructured components the resulting materials might exhibit even more interesting properties, like product effectiveness, tensile strength, wear resistance, endurance and corrosion resistance. Intermetallics like TiAl could be obtained as TiAlx in a quality similar to that obtained from melting where only eutectic mixture can be produced. Similar effects are possible when compacting nanoceramic powders whereas these can be combined with intermetallics. Currently, it is very difficult to produce wires and special shaped parts from high temperature superconducting materials. The compacting by explosives could solve this problem.The present paper uses explosion compacting of Al nanoparticles to create nanocomposite with increased physico-mechanical properties. Russian civil explosive Uglenit was chosen as high energy material (HEM) for shock-wave compaction. The different schemes and conditions were suggested to run the explosion process. Al nanoparticles as produced by electric wire explosion contain 8-10% of aluminum oxide. That aluminum oxide can serve as strengthening material in the final nanocomposite which may be generated in various compositions by explosive compacting. Further modifications of nanocomposites were obtained when including nanodiamonds into the mixture with aluminum nanoparticles with different percentages. The addition of nanodiamonds results in a substantial strengthening effect