Investigation on the combined effect of ZnO nanorods and Y₂O₃ nanoparticles on the microstructural and mechanical response of aluminium

Abstract

In this work Al-ZnO-Y₂O₃ hybrid composites were fabricated utilizing powder metallurgy and hybrid microwave sintering approach from the powder blend of Al, ZnO and Y₂O₃. Depth sensing nano-indentation technique was adopted to assess the nano-hardness and elastic modulus of the composite material. Thermal analysis of the composite materials was done to gain an insight into surface decomposition and phase transformation behaviour. A strong interfacial bonding with clear interface between matrix and reinforcement was observed during the microstructural analysis of the composite material. The results of the current study exhibit ~89% improvement in the nano-hardness and ~11% improvement in the elastic modulus value. The improvement in the material response is attributed to the reasonably uniform distribution of ZnO and Y₂O₃ in the hybrid composite materials. The results of this study validate the capability of combined presence of ZnO and Y₂O₃ reinforcements to enhance the hardness and elastic modulus of aluminium.

Keywords:

• Composites
• Microwave heating
• Nano-indentation
• Scanning electron microscopy (SEM)
• Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM)
• X-ray diffraction (XRD)

Acknowledgements

The author(s) would like to acknowledge Material Processing Research Laboratory of PDPM IIITDM Jabalpur for the fabrication and characterizations of the material. The financial support of this work received by IIITDMJ/ODRSPC/2017/2 and DST/SRG/2019/000571 is highly appreciated. The authors are grateful to support given by nano indentation testing facility IIT Ropar and HRTEM analysis by STIC SAIF Kochi.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Declarations

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Availability of data and material

All pertinent data required in order to reproduce the work in the manuscript have been reported in the Results and Discussion sections.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Science and Engineering Research Board [DST/SRG/2019/000571].