Mechanical properties of aluminium-based nanocomposite reinforced with fullerenes

Aluminum has been spot-lighted due to its earth-abundant and light-weight nature. However, usages of aluminum as an engineering material have been limited by its low strength compared to other engineering metals such as steel and titanium. One possible way to strengthen aluminum is reinforcing it with carbon-based nano-materials, which exhibits superior elastic modulus and yield strength. Here, we develop aluminum-based composite, in which each of fullerenes are intended to be uniformly dispersed via three-step ball-milling processes: first, using a planetary-milling process the fullerene particles were shattered into smaller particles by shear force with two different control agents of stearic acid and ethyl alcohol, respectively; second, planetary milling process was repeated to mix the primarily ball-milled fullerenes and pure aluminum powder; third, attrition milling process was carried out for grain refinement of aluminum as well as further dispersion of fullerenes. Finally, the composite powder was consolidated using hot-pressing or hot- rolling. The composite, containing 2vol% fullerenes milled with stearic acid, shows ∼220 Hv in Vickers' hardness.