Engineers from Technische Universität Dresden and the Fraunhofer Institute for Materials and Beam Technology IWS presented a report on magnesium matrix composites coated with thermal-sprayed aluminum at the ASM International ITSC 2019 conference in Japan.
Metal matrix composites, especially those based on a magnesium matrix, have high specific strength and stiffness, which makes them ideal candidates for lightweight applications. With a density of only 1.8 g/cm3, they compete with carbon fiber reinforced plastics, but offer higher thermal stability.
Compared with unreinforced metals, they have overall improved mechanical properties, in particular fatigue. Unfortunately, their high chemical reactivity leads to low corrosion resistance, which makes coating and protection against environmental impacts absolutely mandatory. Thermal spray offers a wide range of coating possibilities that can act not only as an anticorrosive barrier, but also as an interface layer for later integration in aluminum cast processes.
In this study, aluminum-based coatings (Al99 and AlSi12) were applied to carbon fiber reinforced magnesium specimens by atmospheric plasma spray and high velocity oxyfuel spray. The coatings were characterized in terms of their microstructure and bond/shear-strength. In addition, hybrid-casting experiments were carried out to determine the interface behavior.
Title: Thermal sprayed aluminum coatings on carbon fiber reinforced magnesium
Authors: Mr. Tino Mrotzek, Mr. Jan Conde-Wolter, Mr. Thomas Behnisch, Prof. Maik Gude, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
Dr. Maria Barbosa, Mr. Davide Schultz, Mr. Stefan Scheitz, Prof. Christoph Leyens, Fraunhofer Institute for Materials and Beam Technology, IWS, Dresden, Germany
