Experimental investigation of densification and mechanical behaviour on aluminium reinforced with WCp metal matrix composite prepared by powder metallurgy

Aluminium composites are widely explored material as they provide various specific properties based on the reinforcement added. In this paper, pure Aluminium is reinforced with Tungsten carbide particulates prepared by Powder Metallurgy process. The significance of this investigation is to find a lower cost method for fabrication of a Al-WCp composite. The reinforcement is added as mass fraction basis of 2.5%, 5%, 7.5% and 10%. The composite was prepared for three aspect ratios 0.5, 0.75 and 1.0 to investigate their mechanical behaviour namely hardness and compressive strength. The preforms were densified by cold compaction and then sintered at 640oC for 60 minutes in a muffle furnace. The highest relative density obtained was 94.7% for the aspect ratio 0.75 for 5% tungsten carbide reinforcement. The hardness and compressive tests have revealed that both hardness and compressive strength have progressively increased with addition of tungsten carbide particulates