Factors Influencing the Properties of Whisker-Metal Composites

Composites of aluminum reinforced with α-silicon carbide whiskers have been fabricated by a powder metallurgical technique. Although reinforcement was achieved, composite properties fall considerably below what is expected from the constituent properties. This is inter preted in terms of voids, fiber breakage, and imperfect fiber orientation and the conclusions are supported by a study of the fracture mode of samples tensile tested at temperatures to 500°C.