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Effect of SiC nanoparticles on the precipitation behavior and mechanical properties of 7075Al alloy

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Abstract

In terms of aluminum alloy matrix composites, the effect of reinforcement on precipitation is worth investigating. In this work, the silicon carbide nanoparticles-reinforced 7075Al (SiCnp/7075Al) composite was fabricated through a series of powder metallurgy procedures, shift-speed ball milling, hot pressing, and hot extrusion, and the precipitation behavior of SiCnp/7075Al composite was compared with that of 7075Al alloy after T6 treatment. The results show that only a small addition (1 vol%) of SiCnp modifies the morphology and dispersion of precipitates. The uniformly dispersed small precipitates (η′ phase) and increased dislocation density have a positive influence on the mechanical properties of composites. Based on the fracture surface and element composition, a fracture mode dominated by precipitated phase-induced crack initiation was proposed. This study suggests a promising approach to design the alloy matrix composites through controlling the behavior of precipitated phases with nano-reinforcement.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support by the Equipment Advance Research Fund (No. 61409220102) and Student’s Platform for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program in Tianjin University (No. 201910056053).

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Contributions

BP contributed to experiment, characterization, and writing of the original draft. XL was involved in the investigation, experiment, and characterization. BL contributed to experiment and characterization. XC was involved in the analysis, and revising. CH was involved in the validation, resources, and supervision. NZ contributed to revising, validation, and project administration.

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Correspondence to Chunnian He or Naiqin Zhao.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Pu, B., Lin, X., Li, B. et al. Effect of SiC nanoparticles on the precipitation behavior and mechanical properties of 7075Al alloy. J Mater Sci 55, 6145–6160 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-020-04381-4

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