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Introduction to Metal Matrix Composites

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Yoshinori Nishida

Introduction to Metal MatrixComposites

Fabrication and Recycling

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Yoshinori NishidaNational Institute of Advanced Industrial Science

and Technology (AIST)Nagoya, Japan (retired in 2002)

Original Japanese edition published by CORONA PUBLISHING CO., LTD.KINZOKUKI FUKUGOZAIRYO NYUMONCopyright# 2001 Yoshinori Nishida

ISBN 978-4-431-54236-0 ISBN 978-4-431-54237-7 (eBook)DOI 10.1007/978-4-431-54237-7Springer Tokyo Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012954005

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methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerptsin connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the purpose of beingentered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplicationof this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of thePublishers location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained fromSpringer. Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center.Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law.The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in thispublication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exemptfrom the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date ofpublication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for

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Preface

All materials for aerospace, energy conversion systems, and preservation of the

environment are being assessed, and the demand for light materials is increasing.

Light metals have some drawbacks, however, and to improve these weak areas,

light and strong composites have been developed by strengthening light metals by

ceramic fibers or particles.

Most studies of metal matrix composites (MMCs) are related to the evaluation

of composite properties, and few are related to fabrication processes. Once a

new composite was developed, research on the evaluation of the composite became

very active. Some research on fabrication processes has been carried out, but it wasvery difficult to discuss many fabrication processes fundamentally and systemati-

cally. At an early stage, MMCs such as sintered aluminum products (SAP) and

second-phase reinforced eutectic alloys obtained by unidirectional solidification

were developed without mixing reinforcements into matrix metals by mechanical

means. After the development of mixing techniques, by which ceramic fibers or

particles were dispersed in matrix metals, the research on evaluation of those

composites became very active and many papers about it have been published.

Many of those have been concerned with continuous fibers in particular.

The bonding strength at the fiber/matrix interface and properties of compositesare closely related to fabrication conditions. Therefore, the history of constituent

materials during fabrication should be taken into account to enhance the reliability

of property data of composites. Nevertheless, when the property of composites was

discussed, the fabrication process was made light of. In one case, when a composite

is commercialized, first a composite billet is fabricated and from the billet a

composite product is formed by a mechanical process such as machining, a plastic

deformation process, or casting. In another case, composite fabrication and shaping

of the product are performed at the same time by one operation. The latter will be

better than the former from the point of view of production efficiency and energyefficiency. The fabrication process is very important for industrial application.

In addition, we can achieve high productivity and reliability of composite products

by determining the optimum production condition and by controlling that

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condition. However, the fabrication process has been treated as only a technique

and has not been investigated scientifically.

To date, most monographs on MMCs have been edited for graduate students and

professional researchers. These monographs deal mainly with mechanics, which is

not easy for other students to understand. Now it is time to promote the commer-

cialization of MMCs. A book that will serve as a useful introduction to MMCs is

needed for researchers and industrial engineers who are engaged in developing new

materials.

Therefore, this book was written to systematically discuss in an easy-to-understand

manner the research work that has been carried out until now and to help

researchers in industry to develop composite products in expectation of further

advances in MMCs. The discussion is plainly written to engage the interest of many

people in MMCs and is not difficult even for undergraduate students to understand.

This book includes not only processing but also the properties of composites as anintroduction to MMCs for readers who want to explore the subject further.

The fundamental knowledge necessary to understand MMCs is explained in

Chap. 1. Major fabrication processes, except the pressure infiltration process by

squeeze casting and centrifugal casting, are described in Chap. 2. The fabrication

process by squeeze casting is explained in Chap. 3, because the process is very

important to understand the wetting phenomenon between reinforcement and

molten metal. The theory of pressure infiltration by squeeze casting is discussed

in Chap. 4. The centrifugal casting of metal matrix composites is discussed

in Chap. 5, and the properties of composites are discussed in Chap. 6.The superplasticity of composites as a recent topic is introduced in Chap. 7. The

production processes of reinforcement materials for composites are briefly

explained in Chap. 8, and fundamental ideas of recycling of composites are

discussed in Chap. 9 to meet the demands of the times.

Thanks are due to Dr. Toshio Yamauchi, who was my co-worker on the pressure

infiltration process which occupies the most important part of Chap. 4. I am grateful

to Professors Shojiro Ochiai of Kyoto University (Fig. 6.15) and Sumio Nagata of

Fukuoka University (Figs. 3.3, 3.4 and 3.5) for permission to reproduce figures.

Finally, I would like to express my thanks to Professor Yutaka Kagawa of TheUniversity of Tokyo, Professor Karl U. Kainer of the GKSS Research Centre

Geesthacht, and Professor Chitoshi Masuda and Professor Makoto Yoshida of

Waseda University for their very constructive discussions.

This book is based on the Japanese edition of my book Kinzokuki Fukugozairyo

Nyumon, published by Corona Publishing Co., Ltd., Tokyo. Most of the digital files

of the original figures were provided by the publisher.

Aichi, Japan Yoshinori Nishida

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Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Classification and Characteristics of Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.1.1 Classification of Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.1.2 Characteristics of Metal Matrix Composites . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1.1.3 Examples of Metal Matrix Composite

Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

1.2 Rule of Mixtures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1.3 Surface Energy and Interface Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

1.4 Thermodynamics on Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161.5 Wettability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

1.6 Darcys Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

2 Fabrication Processes for Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2.1 Aspects of Fabrication of Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2.1.1 Energy of Fabrication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2.1.2 Fabrication of Composites by Mechanical

Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

2.1.3 Mechanical Work and Wetting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

2.2 Classification of Fabrication Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

2.3 Comparison of Fabrication Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

2.4 Solid State Fabrication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

2.4.1 Powder Metallurgical Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

2.4.2 Mechanical Alloying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

2.4.3 Diffusion Bonding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

2.4.4 Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

2.5 Liquid State Fabrication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

2.5.1 Vortex Addition Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412.5.2 Compo-Casting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

2.5.3 Pressureless Infiltration Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

2.5.4 Ultrasonic Infiltration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

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2.6 Gaseous State Fabrication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

2.6.1 CVD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

2.6.2 PVD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

2.7 In Situ Fabrication Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

2.7.1 Internal Oxidation Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

2.7.2 Unidirectional Solidification Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

3 Fabrication by Squeeze Casting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

3.1 Application of Pressure and Fabrication Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

3.2 Threshold Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

3.2.1 Case of Random Reinforcement Distribution . . . . . . . . . . 56

3.2.2 Case of Unidirectional Fiber Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

3.2.3 Measurement of Threshold Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583.3 Influence of Preheating of Preform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

3.4 Microscopic Analysis of Fluid Flow in Preforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

4 Theory of Pressure Infiltration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

4.1 Macroscopic Analysis of Fluid Flow in Preforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

4.1.1 Analysis on the Assumption of Constant

Preform Surface Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

4.1.2 Infiltration Velocity Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

4.2 Infiltration Stop Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 884.3 Characteristics of Pressure Infiltration Method

and Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

5 Centrifugal Casting of Metal Matrix Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

5.1 Infiltration of Molten Metal Using Centrifugal Force . . . . . . . . . . 91

5.1.1 Pressure Generated at the Surface of Preform . . . . . . . . . . 92

5.1.2 Infiltration Start Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

5.1.3 Infiltration of Molten Metal into the Preform . . . . . . . . . . 95

5.1.4 Example Calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

5.1.5 Examples of Composites Fabricated

Using Centrifugal Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

5.2 Centrifugal Casting of Particle Dispersed

Molten Metal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

6 Properties of Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

6.1 Mechanical Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

6.1.1 Elastic Modulus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1146.1.2 Strength of Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

6.1.3 Fracture of Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

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6.2 Physical Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

6.2.1 Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

6.2.2 Specific Heat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

6.2.3 Thermal Conductivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

6.2.4 Thermal Expansion Coefficient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

6.3 Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

6.4 New Trends in MMCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

6.4.1 Carbon/Metal Composites with High

Thermal Conductivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

6.4.2 Smart Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

7 Superplasticity of Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

7.1 Background for Superplasticity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1557.2 Mechanism of Superplastic Forming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

7.2.1 Superplastic Deformation Mechanism

of Alloys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

7.2.2 Superplastic Deformation Mechanism

of Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

7.3 Production Methods of Superplastic Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

8 Materials for the Fabrication of Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

8.1 Characteristics of Reinforcementsand Matrix Metals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

8.2 Production Processes for Reinforcements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

8.2.1 Ceramic Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

8.2.2 Ceramic Fibers and Carbon Fibers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

8.2.3 Ceramic Whiskers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

9 Recycling of Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

9.1 Composite Ratio in Products and Re-melting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

9.2 Separation of Fibers or Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

9.2.1 State of Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

9.2.2 Mechanical Separation of Reinforcements . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

9.2.3 Chemical Separation of Reinforcements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

9.3 Separation of Fiber and Metal from Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

9.3.1 Chemical Method and Ratio of Separation . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

9.3.2 Phenomena Associated with Separation

Using Fluxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

9.4 Entropy of Mixing by the Addition of Reinforcement

Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

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9.4.1 Entropy of Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

9.4.2 Entropy Increase upon the Addition

of Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

9.5 Assessment of Metal Matrix Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

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