Microstructure and mechanical properties of graphite fiber-reinforced high-purity aluminum matrix composite

Industrial pure aluminum (0.5 wt% impurity elements) was utilized in many investigations of aluminum matrix composites at home and abroad. However, impurity elements in industrial pure aluminum may influence the interface during fabrication of composite at high temperature. Thereby, it is necessary to use high-purity aluminum (impurity elements less than 0.01%) as matrix to enable study the interface reaction between reinforcement and matrix. In this study, stretches of brittle Al4C3 at the fiber/matrix interfaces in Grf/Al composite were observed. The fracture surface of the composite after tensile and bending tests was flat with no fiber pull-out, which revealed characteristic of brittle fracture. This was related to Al4C3, as this brittle phase may break before the fiber during loading and become a crack initiation point, while the corresponding crack may propagate in the fiber and the surrounding aluminum matrix, finally resulting in low stress fracture of composites.