Manufacturing of high strength aluminium composites reinforced with nano tungsten particles for electrical application and investigation on in-situ reaction during processing

The improvement of strength without compromising the conductivity remains a major issue in developing superior aluminium conductors. This could be addressed by dispersion of nano-sized high melting point elements such as tungsten which has limited solid-solubility in the aluminium matrix. The composites fabricated in this study shows 1.3 times improvement in yield strength, and 2 times increase in UTS. The composites also exhibit superior electrical conductivity compared to other aluminium alloys. Solid-state processing technique was adopted for composite fabrication to avoid thermally activated reaction, between matrix and particles. An unexpected result was the observation of mechanical energy induced interface reaction between aluminum and tungsten during the processing which was not expected at the low processing temperatures. This was confirmed by detailed TEM examination that probed the formation and structure of this new phase. These findings open up newer possibilities toward efficient and scalable manufacturing of high conductive composites with improved strength. (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V.