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Effect of thermal ageing on hardness, tensile and impact properties of an alumina microsphere-reinforced aluminium metal-matrix composite

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Thermal ageing studies have been carried out with an alumina microsphere-reinforced 6061 aluminium metal-metrix composite (MMC). A solution treatment temperature of 530°C for 1.5 h and ageing temperature 175°C with ageing time ranging between 0 and 12 h have been used. It was observed that the hardness achieves a peak value in about 8 h; the ultimate tensile strength shows an increase with increasing ageing time, and reaches a plateau at about 10 h. On the other hand, elongation to failure and impact properties show a sharp decline at approximately 4 h of ageing time. Also, a limited amount of experiments using 175°C/8 h ageing after solution treatment at 510, 490, 470 and 430 °C for 1.5 h show that the hardness of the MMC deceases steadily as the solution treatment temperature is decreased.

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  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, PO BOX 1, 2033, Kensington, NSW, Australia

    J. P. Unsworth & S. Bandyopadhyay

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  1. J. P. Unsworth
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  2. S. Bandyopadhyay
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Unsworth, J.P., Bandyopadhyay, S. Effect of thermal ageing on hardness, tensile and impact properties of an alumina microsphere-reinforced aluminium metal-matrix composite. Journal of Materials Science 29, 4645–4650 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00376291

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