Thermal stability of Al—0,05 vo1.% Al2O3 nanocomposite fabricated by accumulative roll bonding

The paper studies the microstructure and microhardness evolution of the Al—0,05vol.%nAl₂O₃nanocomposite (where nAl₂O₃ are alumina nanoparticles) and aluminum without nanoparticles fabricated by accumulative roll bonding as a result of annealing at 373— 573 K. Ball-shaped Al₂O₃ nanoparticles (average diameter of 50 nm) were introduced between the rolled sheets of commercially pure aluminium during the first to fourth rolling cycles to obtain the nanocomposite. The fifth to tenth rolling cycles were carried out without nanoparticles. The average size and aspect ratio of elements with grain-subgrain structures in the as-processed state and after annealing at 473 K were measured using transmission electron microscopy. It is shown that the nanocomposite microhardness is 50—13 % higher than the respective HV value for aluminum at all studied annealing temperatures. The main factor of the higher nanocomposite microhardness is dispersed hardening by Al₂O₃ nanoparticles. The contribution of substructure and grain boundary hardening is the same for both materials. The thermal stability of nanocomposite microhardness is only ~25 K higher than that of aluminum due to the heterogeneous distribution of nanoparticles in the matrix and their small volume fraction. An additional factor is an inherently high thermal stability of an ultrafine-grained structure formed by accumulative roll bonding with respect to other methods of severe plastic deformation. It was found that most of Al₂O₃ nanoparticles remain at nanocomposite grain boundaries after annealing at 473 K, so Al₂O₃ nanoparticles can fix the boundary up to at least 473 K under the studied conditions.

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