Strengthening mechanisms of graphene sheets in aluminium matrix nanocomposites

TLDR: In this paper, an analytical model devised in this paper has demonstrated the significant role of shear lag and thermally activated dislocation mechanisms in strengthening aluminium metal matrix composites due to the exceptional negative thermal expansion coefficient of graphene sheets.

About: This article is published in Materials & Design.The article was published on 2015-12-25 and is currently open access. It has received 121 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Aluminium & Aluminium carbide.

Figures

Fig. 1 demonstrates TEM images captured from the nanostructure of (a) Thix, (b) GThix and (c) the high magnification image of the GThix sample accompanied by the selected area diffraction (SAD) pattern of the rectangular area.

Fig. 4: Contribution of different strengthening mechanisms in enhancing the tensile yield strength of composite reinforced with graphene sheets.

Table 3 represents the tensile properties and porosity content of the samples resulting from the analysis of different samples. According to Table 3, the yield strength (σYS) and ultimate tensile strength (σUTS) of the GThix sample are considerably higher than the Thix sample by 81% and 60%, respectively, and this is ascribed to the uniform distribution of SiC nanoparticles and the lower porosity of this sample.

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The analytical model devised in this study has demonstrated the significant role of shear lag and thermally activated dislocation mechanisms in strengthening aluminium metal matrix composites due to the exceptional negative thermal expansion coefficient of graphene sheets. This, in turn, triggers the pinning capacity of nano-sized rod-liked aluminium carbide, prompting strong interface bonding for SiC nanoparticles with the matrix, thereby enhancing tensile elongation.