Investigating influence of hybrid (yttria + copper) nanoparticulate reinforcements on microstructural development and tensile response of magnesium

Abstract

In the present study, an attempt has been made to tailor the properties of monolithic magnesium by initially reinforcing it with a predetermined amount of nanosize yttria particulates followed by hybridising it with nanocopper particulates in two different volume percentages of 0?3 and 0?6 vol.-% respectively. Both the monolithic magnesium and magnesium nanocomposites were synthesised using the blend press sinter powder metallurgy technique followed by hot extrusion. For sintering of the materials, an innovative hybrid microwave sintering method was chosen with the objective of realising savings in both time and energy. Test results revealed that both strength and ductility of pure magnesium increased with the addition of yttria and a hybrid reinforcement mixture of yttria and copper nanoparticulates. The best combination of properties in uniaxial tension was obtained for the Mg/(0?7Y 2 O 3 z0?3Cu) hybrid nanocomposite. The observed improvement in properties is attributed to synergistic influences of a noticeable reduction in grain size of the hybrid nanocomposite, coexistence of both Y 2 O 3 and copper to a reasonable extent, and a fairly uniform distribution of the reinforcement particulates and intermetallics. A scientific attempt is made in this study to highlight the significance of using hybrid reinforcements, at nanolength scale, in a pure magnesium matrix to obtain a noticeable increase in tensile properties.

Enhancing the Hardness and Compressive Response of Magnesium Using Complex Composition Alloy Reinforcement

“…In addition to ceramic reinforcements, research efforts have been made to synthesize Mg composites using metal particle reinforcements, such as copper, nickel, titanium, molybdenum, and aluminum [11,12]. Investigations have also been made on Mg composites containing hybrid reinforcements in the form of ceramic plus metal, ceramic plus ceramic, and ceramic plus carbon nanotube (CNT) besides single ceramic, metal, and CNT reinforcements [11,[13][14][15][16]. In a recent development on magnesium composites, ball-milled amorphous particles were also used as a reinforcement in a pure magnesium matrix [17][18][19].…”

Using Microwave Energy to Synthesize Light Weight/Energy Saving Magnesium Based Materials: A Review

“…The density and porosity of microwave-sintered magnesium is in close comparison with conventionally sintered magnesium in spite of the significant reduction in sintering time as shown in Table 3 [12,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. The results of porosity measurements amongst the pure magnesium samples indicate that higher heating rate leads to an improvement in the densification of magnesium.…”

Effect of copper nano particles on high temperature tensile behavior of Mg-Y2O3 nanocomposite

“…No discernible macroscopic defects were observed on the surfaces of sintered billet of nano copper incorporated magnesium-yttria nanocomposite and justified the capability of microwave sintering as viable economic alternative processing route for this novel class of reinforced materials [8]. Incorporation of nano copper marginally increased the porosity volume percentage but maintained the dense nature of magnesium-yttria nanocomposite.…”

“…Incorporation of nano-size yttria into magnesium matrix with reasonable uniform distribution pattern is possible with traditional metallurgical process like ingot metallurgy and powder metallurgy technique. Strength of nano yttria reinforced magnesium nanocomposite was reportedly furthered by addition of 0.3 volume percentage of nanometer size metallic copper particles [8], as it has been established and again justified by this reference that there is a limit of around one volume percentage of nanometer size reinforcement in magnesium based matrix to exploit potential effects. Copper with much larger atomic size and different crystal structure has extremely negligible solubility (e.g., 0.038 at% at 25°C and 0.77 at% at 300°C) in magnesium [9] and has reported to have strong strengthening effect on magnesium matrix when added as reinforcement [10] rather than alloying element.…”

“…Magnesium-yttria nanocomposite was prepared using a similar procedure as discussed above except the addition of copper particles. Details of these materials processing is available elsewhere [7,8].…”