Paper number 1072

AGE-HARDENING OF AN ALUMINIUM ALLOY MATRIX COMPOSITE REINFORCED WITH STAINLESS STEEL FIBRES

C. Salmon¹, F.X. Gustin¹, C.Colin², F.Delannay¹

1Université catholique de Louvain, Département de sciences des matériaux et des procédés, PCIM, Place Sainte Barbe 2, B-1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
2Ecole nationale supérieure des mines de Paris, Centre des matériaux P-M Fourt, BP87, F-91003 Evry cedex, France

Summary

The possibility of reinforcing the age-hardenable aluminium alloy AS9G03 by stainless steel fibres is explored. A first part of the work concerns the composite processing by squeeze casting. Several processing parameters had to be controled in order to obtain a sound material with optimised microstructure. In a second part, the age-hardening of the composite is considered. The oxide layer on the fibres which was designed to prevent the fibre/matrix reaction during the heat-treatment is showed to strongly affect age-hardening due to the diffusion of Mg towards the oxidic fibre/matrix interface. The paper shows how precipitation hardening can be ensured in the composite by adjustment of solution treatment temperature and time and oxide layer thickness.

Keywords

precipitation hardening, CMM, stainless steel fibres.