Strengthening in CNT-Al Composites Produced by High-Energy Ball Milling
In this paper, carbon nanotubes (CNT)-reinforced aluminum (Al) matrix composites were fabricated by High-Energy Ball Milling, the objective was to investigate the evolvement of particle size, density and hardness of CNT-Al composites with increasing wt% CNT, and analyzed the micrographs of mixture powders at different milling time. The results showed that the addition of CNT can play a role of grinding aid to refine grain, improve the hardness and decrease the density, and CNT can be homogeneous dispersed in the matrix with increasing ball-milling time, it also showed that too much CNT was no help on hardness, this attributed to clustering of CNT, the proper addition of CNT was 2wt%, and the mixture powders could reached a state of equilibrium between fracturing and cold-welding at 75min.