JIANG Siqi, FAN Zhiyong, ZHOU Zehua, ZHANG Xin, WANG Qijie
(College of Mechanics and Materials, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, Jiangsu, China)

Abstract: The TiC/5052 matrix composites were fabricated by in-situ reaction. The effects of TiC on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the composites were discussed. The results indicated that an appropriate mass fraction of in-situ TiC particles could strengthen 5052 alloy effectively and maintain good plasticity. The matrix grains changed from dendrites to equiaxed crystals after in-situ reaction. In-situ TiC particles enriched at the grain boundary uniformly and promoted matrix’s heterogeneous nucleation effectively. With the increase of in-situ TiC content, the ultimate tensile strength increased first and then decreased, the hardness increased, and the elongation to failure decreased. When the mass fraction of TiC particles was 3%, the ultimate tensile strength reached 216.17 MPa, while the hardness was HB 49.4 and the elongation to failure was 29.16%.

Key words: in situ synthesis; grain refinement; aluminum matrix composite; TiC particles