The superplasticity of an Al203p/6061Al composite, fabricated by powder metallurgy techniques, has been investigated. Instead of any special thermomechanical processing or hot rolling, simple hot extrusion has been employed to obtain a fine grained structure before superplastic testing. Superplastic tensile tests were performed at strain rates ranging from 10-2 to 10-4 s-1 and at temperatures from 833 to 893 K. A maximum elongation of 200% was achieved at a temperature of 853 K and an initial strain rate of 1.67×103 s-1. The highest value obtained for the strain rate sensitivity index (in) was 0.32. Differential scanning calorimeter was used to ascertain the possibility of any partial melting in the vicinity of optimum superplastic temperature. These results suggested that no liquid phase existed where maximum elongation was achieved and deformation took place entirely in the solid state.
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