Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences: Research Areas

Article Title: Enhancement of Physical and Mechanical Properties of Graphene reinforced Aluminum Composite Synthesized by Powder Metallurgy
by Mohamed Bhlol, and Ayman Elsayed

Abstract:
Fabrication of metal matrix composites has become an important issue in recent years due to their unique properties which make them suitable for a wide variety of applications. In this investigation, graphene reinforced aluminum composites have been manufactured by powder metallurgy technique. The investigated samples were consolidated by cold compaction at different pressures of 250, 350, and 450 MPa and pressureless vacuum sintering at the temperatures of 500, 550, and 600 ?C. The manufactured samples were examined by optical microscope, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction to study the effect of graphene addition to Al matrix. The results showed that the distribution of the reinforcing particles was uniform due to the proper powder mixing conditions used in this study. Increasing the amount of graphene led to higher hardness, and consequently improved the compressive strength of Al�graphene composites. A design of experiment (DOE) technique using Taguchi method has been applied to optimize the properties of Al-graphene composites. Taguchi method involves nine experiments for three processing parameters (graphene percentage, compaction pressure and sintering temperature) with three levels. The signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio analysis was employed to obtain the optimal process parameter levels and to analyze the effect of these parameters on density, hardness, and compressive strength values.

Keywords: Powder Technology, Al-Composite, Graphene, Taguchi Method, Sintering.

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