EFFECTS OF PROCESS PARAMETERS ON PROPERTIES OF ALUMINUM STAINLESS-STEEL FIBER METAL-MATRIX COMPOSITES MADE BY DIFFUSION BONDING

A vacuum, high pressure diffusion bonding process was employed to manu facture aluminium/304 stainless steel fibre composites. The process pa rameters, including time, temperature, and pressure, were systematical ly changed to examine their effects on tile tensile properties of comp osite. Pressure holding time ranged from 5 to 60 min. The hot pressing temperature was changed from 475 to 600 degrees C and the selected pr essures were 30, 70, and 100 MPa. It was found that the tensile proper ties only changed slightly with variation of hot pressing time and pre ssure. 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 propert ies was explained in terms of optical micrographs and SEM fractographs . (C) 1997 The Institute of Materials.