Mechanical and microstructural characterization of dispersion strengthened Al–C system nanocomposites

Al and different amounts of C and C–Cu mixtures were used to produce Al–C and Al–C–Cu powder samples by mechanical milling. Microhardness tests were carried out to evaluate the mechanical properties of the nanocomposites in the as-milled condition. In general, the measured values were considerably higher than pure Al. In order to determine the causes of this hardening, the crystallite size and dislocation density were measured by means of X-ray analyses coupled with a convolutional multiple whole profile (CMWP) fitting program and a comparison with atomic force microscopy (AFM) observations. In Al–C samples, the hardening is mainly due to the decrease of the crystallite size, however for the Al–C–Cu, an additional strengthening mechanism appears and it seems that it is due by a dispersion of graphite nanoparticles in the Al matrix. The strengthening contributions of dislocation density, crystallite size and particle dispersion were modeled by superposing of every single contribution to strengthening (via hardness analyses). We found a direct relationship between the mechanical properties and the nominal amount of C–Cu, where Cu apparently acts as C nanoparticles integration and dispersion agent.