Abstract
A vacuum, high pressure diffusion bonding process was employed to manufacture aluminium/304 stainless steel fibre composites. The process parameters, including time, temperature, and pressure, were systematically changed to examine their effects on the tensile properties of composite. Pressure holding time ranged from 5 to 60 min. The hot pressing temperature was changed from 475 to 600°C and the selected pressures were 30, 70, and 100 MPa. It was found that the tensile properties only changed slightly with variation of hot pressing time and pressure. However, the tensile properties changed significantly with hot pressing temperature when the temperature was high enough such that an aluminium/stainless steel fibre interfacial compound was observed in the optical micrograph. The mechanism of change in the tensile properties was explained in terms of optical micrographs and SEM fractographs.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.