J. Mater. Sci. Technol. ›› 2015, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (10): 1027-1033.DOI: 10.1016/j.jmst.2015.08.004

• Orginal Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Microstructural Characterization and Mechanical Properties of VB2/A390 Composite Alloy

Xiaoli Cui, Yuying Wu*, Xiangfa Liu   

  1. Key Laboratory for Liquid-Solid Structural Evolution and Processing of Materials, Ministry of Education, Shandong University, Ji′nan 250061, China
  • Received:2015-01-23 Revised:2015-05-20
  • Contact: * Corresponding author. Ph.D.; Tel.: +86 531 88392282; Fax: +86 531 88395414.E-mail address: wuyuying@sdu.edu.cn (Y. Wu).
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (“973 Program”, No. 2012CB825702), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51001065 and 51071097), the Taishan Scholar Blue Industry Talents Support Program of Shandong Province (2013) and Young Scholars Program of Shandong University.

Abstract: In this work, we make the best use of the vanadium element; a series of Al-V-B alloys and VB2/A390 composite alloys were fabricated. For Al-10V-6B alloy, the grain size of VB2 can be controlled within about 1µm and is distributed uniformly in the Al matrix. Further, it can be found that VB2 promises to be a useful reinforcement particle for piston alloy. The addition of VB2 can improve the mechanical properties of the A390 composite alloys significantly. The results show that with 1% VB2 addition, A390 composite alloy exhibits the best performance. Compared with the A390 alloy, the coefficient of thermal expansion is 13.2×10-6K-1, which decreased by 12.6%; the average Brinell hardness can reach 156.5HB, wear weight loss decreased by 28.9% and ultimate tensile strength at 25°C (UTS25°C) can reach 355MPa, which increased by 36.5%.

Key words: Al alloy matrix composites, Mechanical properties, Particle-reinforced composites, Microstructural characterization