Fabrication of Palladium-Free Nickel-Coated Carbon Fiber Reinforced Magnesium Alloy Composites by Powder Metallurgy Hot Extrusion and Their Microstructure

Chopped carbon fibers reinforced magnesium was made using the powder metallurgy technique followed by hot extrusion. In order to enhance the carbon fiber wettability to the matrix, the carbon fibers were nickel-coated by palladium-free activated electroless coating method and then characterized by field emission-scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) equipped with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). The fiber distribution in composite extrusion process was analyzed. The results show that nickel-plated carbon fibers can meet the requirement for the preparation and the dispersion process is as fellows: its green is produced by applying 420 Mpa pressure at room temperature, then consolidated by hot extrusion at 480 degrees C and 280 MPa pressure, sintered at 550 degrees C for 0.5 h.