Study of Thermal Conductivity of the Al-SiC Reinforced Metal Matrix Composites Developed by Powder Metallurgy Technique

摘要

To meet the current industry needs, engineering materials like ceramics, metallic alloys and polymers have been developed successfully from many years from simple design process and by conventional methodology. Past few decades there is a revolutionary change in the engineering field and a lot of specialized and innovative applications evolved where a great demand of new compatible materials gained high attention which can meet high demand of material properties having higher stress-strain, low and high thermal temperatures, high strength to low weight ratio with good material stiffness property and higher fracture toughness. Developing traditional monolithic materials to meet above demanding requirement fails, subsequently numerous alternate materials developed to meet the condition. Aluminum Metal Matrix Composites (AMMC) reinforced with ceramic powder particles makes an attractive and innovative composite material. The Al-SiCparticulate reinforced composites developed by powder metallurgy technique have been tested for thermal conductivity. In the tested range, the thermal conductivity displays linear dependency on temperature. Thermal conductivity increases with decreasing SiC particle size and this is mainly due to the stability of conductive paths in smaller size SiC particles. It is also seen that, with increasing SiC volume fraction we can see decrease in the thermal conductivity. When heated, the heat will flow through Aluminum particles, this is mainly due to the electric charge that have a tendency to flow where resistance is low.