Volume 18, Issue 5, 2009

EFFECT OF SUBSEQUENT AGING IN SiCP REINFORCED AA2124 ALUMINUM METAL MATRIX COMPOSITE

Yahya BOZKURT¹*, Recep ARTIR², Hüseyin UZUN³, Serdar SALMAN<sup>1

1</sup> Marmara University, Faculty of Technology, Goztepe-Istanbul, 34722, Turkey
² Marmara University, Faculty of Engineering, Dept. of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Goztepe-Istanbul, 34722, Turkey
³ Sakarya University, Faculty of Technology, Esentepe Campus, Sakarya, 54187, Turkey

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed, E-mail: ybozkurt@marmara.edu.tr

Received 25 February 2009; accepted 24 June 2009

ABSTRACT
The present study is focused on the evaluation of the aging behaviour and microstructure characterization of AA2124/SiC/25p composite under the aging temperatures of 180, 185 and 190 °C for various dwelling time ranging from 0 up to 100 hours. The microstructure was characterized by means of scanning electron microscopy. The hardness, energy dispersive spectroscopy analysis and X-ray diffraction measurements were also performed to evaluate the characteristics of aged AA2124/SiC/25p composite. The results show that the hardness values of as-received composite were considerably improved up to two third by the subsequent ag­ing. The hardness increasing was attributed to the presence of CuAl2, Al4SiC4 and precipitation phases in aged AA2124/SiC/25p composite.

Keywords: AA2124/SiC/25p composite, Artifical aging, Hardness