Mechanical and Microstructural Characterization of Magnesium/Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes Composites Fabricated via Friction Stir Processing

The need for new generation high-performance lightweight materials for automotive and aerospace applications has gripped manufacturers and engineers around the world to enhance the strength-to-weight ratio and fuel efficiency of the vehicles, thus improving the economics of mass production and novel product development processes. Metal matrix reinforced with nanoparticles has tremendously risen in the strength of the composite material by effectively carrying out load transfer between reinforcement and parent matrix metal. In this research work, magnesium and various volume percentage of multi-walled carbon nanotubes were fabricated via friction stir processing (FSP) and the significant influence of addition of multi-walled carbon nanotubes into pure magnesium was examined. The microstructural features, mechanical behaviours such as tensile strength, were investigated. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis has confirmed the presence of parent phases of materials without any reactive phases. The optimum increase in the tensile strength of the composite material was obtained to be 203% more than that of cast pure magnesium at 20 vol.% MWCNT reinforcement.