Workability and heat transfer characteristic of graphene nanoplatelets reinforced aluminium nanocomposites

Abstract

Aluminium and its alloys are being employed extensively in the aerospace and automotive industries, due to their high strength to weight ratio, light weight, thermal conductivity, corrosion resistance and formability. Aluminium and its alloys used for automotive and aircraft engine parts and structural members do not meet the functional requirements of next generationenergy-efficient materials. The need for the development of Nano structured aluminium materials has been proving in aircraft and automotive industries for functional applications. Integration of Nano materials with bulk aluminium materials is the most challenging to-date in offering improved properties for structural and thermal applications. The present work aimed to predict the effect of hot extrusion and GNPs content on microstructural, mechanical, strain hardening behaviour, thermal and heat transfer characteristic of aluminium metal matrix composites. Graphene Nanoplatelets reinforced aluminium composites are prepared using powder metallurgy and a hot extrusion process, with the GNPs content ranging from zero to 2 wt. percentage in increments of 0.5 wt. %. The prepared composites are characterised using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). After each stage of deformation, each non-extruded and extruded GNP dispersed aluminium composites subjected to incremental compressive loading for workability studies. The stress in axial and hoop direction, hydrostatic stress, instantaneousstrain hardening exponent, and strength coefficient calculated for extruded and non-extruded GNPs dispersed aluminium composites newline