Experimental Investigation on the Thermal and Mechanical Behavior of Ni/Al Reactive Composites Synthesized by Mechanical Alloying

In this research, aluminum matrix reinforced with continuous carbon and glass fibres composite were produced using A356 aluminum alloy as the matrix, and T300 carbon fiber and E-glass as the reinforcement during the squeeze casting process. Carbon fibers were first coated with a layer of nickel-phosphorus using the electroless method. Then, aluminum alloy 356 pipe and composite pipes with 30 weight percent of carbon fibers and 30,40,50 and 60 weight percent of glass fibers were cast at 75 MPa and 500 °C. After casting, the microstructure, and mechanical properties of composite samples were investigated. Nickel-phosphorus coating on carbon fibers has a significant effect on the wettability of carbon fibers with aluminum melt and thus the penetration of aluminum melt into carbon fibers. The hardness of composite pipes reached approximately 2 times that of alloy pipe and the density decreased to 9.5% with increasing weight percent of fibers. The highest bending strength was obtained at 340.82 MPa, which is related to the reinforced composite pipe with40 weight percent of glass fibers. Tensile strength was measured by the nol ring test, in which a composite tube with 30 weight percent of carbon fiber had the highest tensile strength with a 76% increase over the alloy pipe. The predominant mechanism in the failure of carbon fiber-reinforced composite pipe was fiber pull-out and in the failure of glass-fiber-reinforced composite pipes, the fibers were cut.