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• Subramanian, J
• Loh, Z
• Seetharaman, S
• Hamouda, A
• Gupta, M
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• Subramanian, J
• Loh, Z
• Seetharaman, S
• Hamouda, A
• Gupta, M
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• Subramanian, J
• Loh, Z
• Seetharaman, S
• Hamouda, A
• Gupta, M

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Metals 2012, 2(2), 178-194; doi:10.3390/met2020178

Article

Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Mg-5Nb Metal-Metal Composite Reinforced with Nano SiC Ceramic Particles

Jayalakshmi Subramanian ^1,* , Zhenhua Loh ¹ , Sankaranarayanan Seetharaman ¹ , Abdelmagid S. Hamouda ²  and Manoj Gupta ¹

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS), 9 Engineering Drive 1, Singapore 117576, Singapore ² Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, Qatar University, P.O. Box No. 2713 Doha, State of Qatar

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received: 14 May 2012; in revised form: 4 June 2012 / Accepted: 6 June 2012 / Published: 11 June 2012

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Magnesium Technology)

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Abstract: In this work, a Mg-5Nb metal–metal composite was reinforced with nano SiC (SiC_n) ceramic reinforcement of varying volume fractions, using the disintegrated melt deposition technique. The extruded Mg-5Nb-SiC_n composites were characterized for their microstructure and mechanical properties. Based on the results obtained, it was observed that the volume fraction of nano-SiC reinforcement played an important role in determining the grain size and improving the mechanical properties. A comparison of properties with those of pure Mg and Mg-5Nb composite showed that while the improvement in hardness occurred at all volume fractions, a minimum volume fraction of ~0.27% SiC_n was required to increase the tensile and compressive strengths. The observed mechanical response of the composites were investigated in terms of the effect of SiC_n volume fraction, processing, distribution of metallic and ceramic reinforcements and the inherent properties of the matrix and reinforcements. The influences of these factors on the mechanical behavior of the composites are understood based on the structure–property relationship.

Keywords: magnesium composites; nano-reinforcements; reinforcement volume fraction; microstructure; hardness; tensile strength; compressive strength; fractography

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