Production of Aluminium Based Interpenetrating Phase Composites Using Semi-Solid Forming

Abstract

The following paper deals with the production of Interpenetrating Phase Composites (IPC) using semi-solid forming technology. Therefore, adequate ceramic foams were selected and infiltrated by processing the aluminium alloy A356 in the semi-solid state. In the studies presented in this paper, the infiltrations of two ceramic materials (Al2O3 and SiC) with three different pore sizes (10, 20 and 30 ppi) were investigated. During the forming process the liquid phase fraction of the aluminium was varied to analyze infiltration effects in relation to the raw material´s liquid phase fraction. Afterwards, microsections of the produced specimens were analyzed in order to characterize their microstructure and the quality of infiltration. The results showed that completely filled composite components with good mechanical properties can be produced by infiltrating ceramic preforms with a semi-solid aluminium alloy.