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Scripta Materialia 59 (2008) 619622

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Mechanical properties of SiC/Gr/Al composites fabricated

by squeeze casting technology
Jinfeng Leng,a,* Gaohui Wu,a Qingbo Zhou,b Zuoyong Doua and XiaoLi Huanga
a

Center for Metal Matrix Composites Engineering Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150001, China
b
Northeast Light Alloys Company Ltd., Harbin, Heilongjiang 150060, China
Received 11 January 2008; revised 24 April 2008; accepted 14 May 2008
Available online 27 May 2008

SiC/Gr/Al composites were fabricated by squeeze casting with graphite volume fractions of 37% and particles size of 1, 6, 10, 20
and 70 lm. No Al4C3 brittle interfacial product could be detected by transmission electron microscopy. With increasing volume
fraction and particle size of graphite, the tensile strength (rb) decrease from 420 to 235 MPa and the elastic modulus (E) decrease
from 166 to 116 GPa. These changes were in close accordance with the linear function: E = 224rb + 61,695.
2008 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Casting; Metalmatrix composites (MMC); Mechanical properties; Graphite

Silicon carbide particle-reinforced aluminum metal

matrix composites (MMC) are a unique class of advanced engineered materials that have been developed
and qualied for use in aerospace structures, lightweight
optical assemblies and inertial guidance systems over the
past 20 years [1,2]. Such materials are as light as aluminum but exhibit signicantly greater specic strengths
and stiness. Moreover, these materials are isotropic
and more resistant to compressive microcreep than
beryllium. They also can be tailored to match materials,
including stainless steel, beryllium and nickel. The presence of hard, brittle and abrasive SiC reinforcement
makes the material dicult to form or machine using
traditional manufacturing processes [36]. In order to
improve machinability of the SiCp/Al composites,
graphite has been added to the composites [7,8]. However, with the addition of graphite particles, the mechanical properties of composites decrease, and this limits
their large-scale industrial applications as structure
materials. Therefore, how to maintain the higher
mechanical properties of SiC/Gr/Al composites has become the focus of much research.
To date, most of the studies have been concerned with
the fabrication technique of the SiC/Gr/Al composites
[915], such as stir-casting and spray co-deposition.
For SiC/Gr/Al composites fabricated by stir-casting,

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 451 86402373; fax: +86 451

86412164; e-mail: jeng@126.com

the mechanical properties of the composites are low

due to the presence of coarse graphite particles (the size
of graphite must above 20 lm), the segregation of particles and the presence of Al4C3 intermetallic compound.
The spray co-deposition technique also has some drawbacks, such as the inhomogeneous distribution of particles and the relative low density, leading to poor
mechanical properties of the composites. To the best to
our knowledge, the composite fabricated by squeeze
casting exhibits better mechanical properties due to the
presence of fewer common defects such as porosity and
shrinking cavities, and the elimination of segregation of
the reinforcement. However, SiC/Gr/Al composites fabricated by this technique have seldom been reported on,
and details of their mechanical properties are still lacking. Therefore, the present study concentrated on the
fabrication of SiC/Gr/Al composites, and the microstructure and mechanical properties of the composites
are also reported.
The matrix alloy was 2024Al, with the chemical composition (wt.%): 4.79% Cu, 1.49% Mg, 0.611% Mn,
0.245% Fe, 0.168% Si, 0.068% Zn, 0.046% Ti, 0.013%
Ni, 0.049% Cr and the balance Al. SiC particles with a
volume fraction of 40% and an average size of 3 lm
and aky graphite particles with volume fractions of
3%, 5% and 7% and average sizes of 1, 6, 10, 20 and
70 lm were used as the reinforcements. The composite
was fabricated by squeeze casting technology. First,
the SiC and graphite particles were mixed by mechanical
balling for 30 min at a rotational speed of 350 rpm.

1359-6462/$ - see front matter 2008 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.scriptamat.2008.05.018

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J. Leng et al. / Scripta Materialia 59 (2008) 619622

Then they were lled and pressed into a mold to produce

a SiC/Gr preform and preheated. At the same time, the
aluminum alloy was melt, degassed and cleaned in a
graphite crucible and heated to 800 C. Subsequently,
the molten aluminum was poured into the tool steel
die and a vertical pressure of up to 100 MPa was applied
to force the molten aluminum to completely inltrate
the SiC/Gr preform. The pressure was maintained for
180 s until the solidication was complete. The samples
were all treated according to the following protocol:
solution treating at 495 C for 1 h, quenching into water,
then aging at 160 C for 10 h. For comparison, the SiC/
Al composite specimens were prepared by the same
method.
XRD analyses were performed on an XPert X-ray
), operated at
diractometer with Cu Ka (k = 1.5406 A
40 kV and 40 mA. The microstructures of the composites and fracture surfaces were examined using a S-570
scanning electron microscope. Interfacial morphologies
between the reinforcement and alloy matrix were analysed using a CM12 transmission electron microscope.
Tensile tests were conducted on an Instron5569 testing
machine at ambient temperature with the crosshead
moving rate of 0.5 mm min1. Each tensile strength value as well as the elastic modulus value was the average
of at least six measurements. The details of the tensile
tests, such as the shape and dimensions of the tensile
specimen, are given elsewhere [16].
Figure 1 shows the microstructure of 40%SiC/
5%Gr(70 lm)/Al composite as portrayed by scanning
electron microscopy (SEM). The SiC particles and aky
graphite particles are distributed homogeneously in
the Al matrix. The composites were free from common
defects, such as porosity and shrinking cavities. Dense
microstructures were obtained by the high pressure during the solidication process, which contributed to the
improvement in the mechanical properties.
Al4C3 is often found in SiC/Gr/Al composites made
by stir-casting. Al4C3 is a brittle phase and results from
the interfacial reactions between SiC and Al and between
graphite and Al. It deteriorates the mechanical properties of the composite. Thus avoiding the formation of
Al4C3 is a primary concern for the successful fabrication
of SiC/Gr/Al composite.
In order to reveal the interfacial details of reinforcement and Al matrix, transmission electron microscopy
(TEM) was used to study the interfacial microstructure
of the composites. Figure 2a and b shows the morphologies of the interface between the reinforcements and the

Figure 2. TEM micrographs of 40%SiC/5%Gr(70 lm)/Al composites.

Al matrix. As shown in the gure, the interface between

SiC or graphite and Al matrix is free from any interfacial reaction products. This indicates that squeeze casting is a viable technique for the fabrication of SiC/Gr/
Al composite that avoids the shortcomings of the composite fabricated by stir-casting technology, such as
introducing the brittle intermetallic compound Al4C3.
The addition of graphite and SiC particles to molten
aluminum alloy often leads to severe reactivity between
graphite or SiC and Al under the thermodynamic conditions that are normally present in common casting fabrication techniques. These reactions include
4Al 3C ! Al4 C3

4Al 3SiC ! Al4 C3 3Si

In this work, no interfacial reactivity was observed on

the interfaces between Al and SiC or graphite. This is
for two reasons. First, reactions (1) and (2) are mainly
controlled by the kinetics of Al4C3 formation. Molten
aluminum alloy was ltered into the SiC/Gr preform,
such that SiC or graphite particles were in contact with
molten aluminum. Due to the cooling eect of the preform and the mold, the contact time between the reinforced particles and the molten aluminum was
shortened, and this decreased the possibility of interfacial reactions. Secondly, the SiC/Gr perform had been
preheated at 600 C, which induces the formation of
SiO2 oxidation layers on the SiC particles. SiO2 layers
prevent any direct contact between the SiC and the molten Al, and this inhibits the formation of Al4C3, as reported in the literature [17]. Graphite particles with a
high degree of graphitization do not readily react with
molten aluminum because their chemical properties are
relatively stable compared with carbon. According to
the Bragg equation, interlayer spacing can be obtained,
and, on basis of the model given by Maire and Mering
[18,19], the value of the degree of graphitization can
be calculated from the following equation:
G

Figure 1. SEM
composites.

microstructure

of

40%SiC/5%Gr(70 lm)/Al

0:3440  d 002
0:3440  0:3354

where G is the degree of graphitization (%), 0.3440 is the

interlayer spacing of the fully nongraphitized carbon
(nm), 0.3354 is the interlayer spacing of the ideal graphite crystallite and the d(002) is the interlayer spacing (nm)
derived from X-ray diraction (XRD). Figure 3 shows
the XRD pattern of the graphite particles. It can be seen
that the value of 2h for graphite particles is 26.57.

J. Leng et al. / Scripta Materialia 59 (2008) 619622

621

where Vp is the volume fraction of graphite particles and

d is the particle size. Based on formula (4), we can see
that the particle spacing decreased exponentially with
increasing volume content of graphite particles, which
was due to the matrix being dramatically divided by
graphite particles. This could explain why the mechanical properties of composites decreased with increasing
volume fraction of graphite particles. In addition, with
increasing particle size of graphite, the tensile strength
of SiC/Gr/Al showed a signicant reduction, i.e. the tensile strength of 40%SiC/5%Gr/Al composites are 420,
282 and 235 MPa with graphite particle sizes of 1, 20
and 70 lm, respectively. This indicates that the tensile
strength of the SiC/Gr/Al composite is aected remark-

ably by the volume fraction and particle size of the

graphite particles.
The hybrid-reinforced composites may be divided
into two parts SiC + Al and graphite since there is
a strong bond between SiC particles [21] and Al but a
weak bond between graphite and Al. In other words, SiC + Al can be considered as a matrix, while graphite is
the reinforcement embedded in the SiC + Al matrix.
The good interfacial bonding between SiC particles
and Al might be due to the fact that there is no brittle
phase in the interfaces, as shown in Figure 3. Also, loads
can be eectively transferred from the Al to SiC, thus
SiC is the main load-bearing body. Hence, the overall
mechanical properties of the composite are improved.
Graphite is a soft phase, which deteriorates the mechanical properties signicantly.
The fracture surfaces of the composite were examined
by SEM, and the fractography is shown in Figure 5. It
can be seen that SiC + Al matrix failed in a ductile manner while graphite particles fail in a brittle manner.
Cleavage fracture along the graphite basal plane of the
graphite particles is found, as shown by A and B in Figure 5. Cracks propagate between akes and/or along the
Al/graphite interface. Graphite particles in composites
tend to fracture in a brittle fashion, which could be ascribed to two factors. On the one hand, graphite particle
layers parallel to the basal plane are held together by
weak van der Waals forces. At the same time, weakbonding interfaces exist between the graphite particles
and Al. These become a crack source under applied
stress and the crack then propagates rapidly between
the akes and/or along the Al/graphite interface. The
crack propagation path in the composite with ne
graphite particles is shorter than that with coarse graphite particles because crack propagation is inhibited by
the plastic deformation of the SiC + Al matrix. Thus
the composite with ne graphite particles has a higher
tensile strength than that with coarse ones. In addition,
with an increasing volume fraction of graphite particles,
the crack sources increase correspondingly, hence the
tensile strength of composite are reduced.
Further, the elastic modulus also depends on graphite. According to the HashinShtrikman model and
the rule of mixture, the elastic modulus of the composite
is aected mainly by the elastic modulus of the reinforcement and that of the matrix alloy. Compared to the SiC + Al matrix, the graphite particles have an extremely
low elastic modulus. Therefore, the elastic modulus of
the composites must come mainly from the SiC + Al
matrix. The signicant decrease in the elastic modulus

Figure 4. Eect of the volume fraction and size of graphite particles on

mechanical properties of SiC/Gr/Al composites at room temperature.

Figure 5. SEM tensiling fractographs of 40%SiC/5%Gr(70 lm)/Al.

(002)

100

80

Intensity

60

40

20

26.57
0
25.6 25.8 26.0

26.2

26.4 26.6 26.8 27.0 27.2

Deg, 2

27.4

Figure 3. XRD pattern of graphite particles.

According to above calculation, the value of the degree

of graphitization is 98.64%. This indicates that the structure of graphite particles chosen is close to that of ideal
graphite crystallite. Thus, the reinforced particles with a
high degree of graphitization inhibit the interfacial reaction of Al/graphite.
The eects of the volume fraction and size on
mechanical properties of SiC/Gr/Al composites at room
temperature are showed in Figure 4a and b. It can be
clearly seen that the tensile strength of SiC/Al composites decreases with the addition of graphite particles,
which is mainly attributed to the signicantly lower
strength of graphite (about 2030 MPa) compared with
the matrix alloy and SiC. With the addition of 3%, 5%
and 7% graphite particles (particle size: 6 lm) in SiC/
Al, the tensile strength is 412, 405 and 365 MPa respectively. Compared to 510 MPa for the SiC/Al composite,
the tensile strength of the SiC/Gr/Al composites are decreased by 19%, 21% and 28%, respectively. Assuming
the particles to be equiaxed, particles spacing (k) is calculated using the following relationship [20]:
k 0:77dV p1=2

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J. Leng et al. / Scripta Materialia 59 (2008) 619622

180

Elastic modulus(GPa)

170
160
150
140
130
120
110
100
200

250

300
350
400
Tensile strengh(MPa)

450

Figure 6. Relationship between tensile strength and elastic modulus.

is obtained with increasing graphite particles, as shown

in Figure 4a and b. When the volume fraction of graphite particles is increased from 0% to 3%, 5% and 7%, the
value of elastic modulus decreased from 172 to 152, 150
and 144 GPa, and the extent of reduction is 12%, 13%
and 16%, respectively. In addition, with the increasing
of particle size of graphite, the tensile strength of SiC/
Gr/Al shows a signicant reduction, i.e. the elastic modulus of 40%SiC/5%Gr/Al composites are 166, 125 and
116 GPa with the graphite particle sizes of 1, 20 and
70 lm, respectively.
From above discussion we know that the tensile
strength of the SiC/Gr/Al composites clearly depends
on the volume fraction and particles size of graphite,
and the elastic modulus is also aected remarkably by
the volume fraction and particles size of graphite particles. Figure 6 shows the relationship between the tensile
strength and elastic modulus of SiC/Gr/Al composites.
As can be seen, the elastic modulus decreases with a decrease in tensile strength. Moreover, this phenomenon
can be described by the following linear function:
E Krb C

where E is the elastic modulus, rb is the tensile strength,

and K and C are material constants. The result of calculation is K = 224, C = 61,695. For SiC/Gr/Al composites, cracks initiate on the interfaces between the
graphite particles and the matrix under applied stress,
and then propagate rapidly between akes and/or along
the Al/graphite interface until nally the samples fracture. Thus, the tensile strength of SiC/Gr/Al composites
depends greatly on the size and distribution of the
graphite particles, namely the continuity of matrix.
The decrease in elastic modulus is also induced by the
graphite particles. Cracks are initiated under applied
stress, leading to the failure of the composites continuity, and as a result the elastic deformation cannot be
transferred eectively. Therefore, decreases in both tensile strength and elastic modulus have same physical essence and both mechanical properties are closely
interrelated.
By the addition of graphite with dierent volume
fractions and particle sizes, SiC/Gr/Al composites were

fabricated by squeeze casting. These composites are

macroscopically dense and homogeneous, with no distinct presence of Al4C3 in the composites. The tensile
strengths range from 235 to 420 MPa, depending on
the volume fraction and the size of the graphite particles. With the addition of 3%, 5% and 7% graphite particles to SiC/Al composites, the tensile strengths are 412,
405 and 365 MPa, which are decreased by 19%, 21% and
28%, respectively. The tensile strength of 40%SiC/
5%Gr/Al composites decreased with the particle size of
the graphite increasing from 1 to 70 lm, with the highest
value of 420 MPa for the composite with 1 lm graphite
particles and the lowest value of 235 MPa for that with
70 lm particles. The elastic modulus of the composites
tends to decrease with increasing volume fraction and
particle size of graphite. Both the tensile strength and
the elastic modulus depended on the volume fraction
and the size of graphite particles. Moreover, this phenomenon could be described by the linear function:
E = 224rb + 61,695.
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