Fabrication and Characterization of Al Nanocomposite Reinforced with CNTs Prepared by Powder Metallurgy Method

Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) have unique mechanical properties as well as excellent thermal stability and electrical conductivity [1]. The mechanical properties of Nanotubes such as tensile strength and elastic modulus are 150 Gpa and 1.0 Tpa respectively [2]. Therefore CNTs can be used as potential reinforcements for composites. However only limited studies have been reported for metal matrix composite (MMC) mainly because the though fabrication condition for maintaining the stability of CNTs during the processing. The techniques developed for fabrication MMCs are powder metallurgy (PM) [3] and plasma spray [4]. In this work we fabricated Al matrix composite reinforced with CNTs by powder metallurgy technique and we determined the variation of density and hardness with CNT content in composite. We used SEM and XRD to show the dispersion of carbon Nanotubes and reaction products in matrix