Abstracts Book - IMRC 2018

• SD7-P012
MICROSTRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION OF AL-CU-MG ALLOY
REINFORCED WITH WC PARTICLES SYNTHETIZED BY
MECHANICAL ALLOYING
Gustavo Rodríguez Cabriales 1 , Adam Mauricio Lometo Sánchez 2 , Ivanovich Estrada Guel 1 ,
Carlos Gamaliel Garay Reyes 1 , Maria Cristina Maldonado Orozco 2 , Roberto Martínez Sánchez 1
1 Centro de Investigación en Materiales Avanzados, S.C., Metalurgia e Integridad Estructural,
Mexico. 2 Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Facultad de Ingeniería, Mexico.
The metal matrix composites reinforced with ceramic particle is widely used in
aircraft industries due to their excellent properties, like tensile strength, stability
thermal and yield strength. An excellent candidate to reinforce this composite is
tungsten carbide (WC) due to its high hardness, high strength, good chemical
stability and better resistance at high temperature. The mechanical alloying (MA)
is an excellent method to fabricate composites, due to repeated fracturing and
welding of particles during mechanical alloying can result in appropriate mixing
of constituents, which can lead to a change in solubility limits and formation of
metastable solid solutions. Additionally, by MA it is possible a homogeneous
dispersion of second phases. The principal objective of this work is
manufacturing Al-Cu-Mg-WC composite powders by mechanical alloying and
their microstructural characterization. The experimentation consisted in
fabricated by mixing powders in the appropriate percentage to obtain chemical
composition of Al-4Cu-1.5Mg-1WC alloy (wt.%). It was used a high energy mill
(Spex-8000) during 3 and 5 h in an argon atmosphere. The milling ball-to-powder
ratio was 5 to 1, methanol was added as process control agent. The
microstructural characterization was carried out by scanning electron
microscopy and structural characterization was determined by X-ray diffraction.
A SEM Hitachi model SU3500 and PANalytical X’Pert PRO diffractometer was
used for different characterizations. The crystallite size was determined by
Scherrer formula. The particle and crystallite size, and morphology of powder
changed in function of milling time because of processes of MA. In addition, it is
appreciated in XRD diffractograms how decrease the intensity and broadened
of characteristic peaks of Al and Cu in function of same parameter; however, the
characteristic peaks of WC phase did not suffer change. The results allowing
concluded that is possible fabricate Al-Cu-Mg-WC nanocomposite powders by
MA with homogeneous spatial distribution of WC.