Development of Aluminium-Yttrium Oxide Metal Matrix Composite Foam Through FSP

摘要

Nowadays safety is the most important concern in the automobile industries. The safety can enhance by applying high-strength materials, but in general high-strength material is heavy and reduces the fuel economy of the automobiles. Thus, there is a requirement of such a material which have high strength to weight ratio. One such type of material is aluminium foam having high strength to weight ratio and also has very good impact-absorbing capability. The friction stir processing (FSP) opens a new route for developing aluminium foam. Also, if it is possible to develop the foams by light metal matrix composite (MMC) materials, then it added more features into it. Thus in present work, aluminium-yttrium oxide (AI-Y_2O_3) MMC foam is developed by using FSP technique by adding TiH_2 and pure aluminium powder. The result shows proper foam is developed by using FSP route. The pores are uniform and equally distributed into the aluminium matrix. The compressive strength of the foam decreases with increasing the amount of TiH_2 (Titanium hydride) into the metal matrix. This is because of the increase in size of the pores which increases the distance between load-bearing matrix.