Investigational studies on characteristics of Nano Silicon Nitride Incorporated AA8050 composites

ABSTRACT This current work, studied the effects of nano silicon nitride (n-Si3N4) particles incorporated with AA8050 matrix using a stir-casting method. Physical characteristics including density and porosity were measured. The mechanical characteristics including the impact strength (IS), ultimate tensile strength (UTS), elongation (El), and Vickers hardness (HV) were evaluated according to the standards. Metallurgical characteristics including Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) examined the synthesized composites. The theoretical density rise for 3.5% reinforcement is capped at 1.6%, while the experimental density drop is 3.1%. Also incorporating n-Si3N4 into the matrix significantly increased the UTS, HV, and IS with a percentage of 11.04%, 25.88%, 29.88% accordingly. SEM of AA8050 Composites revealed a dispersion of n-Si3N4 particles in the AA8050. When analyzing the EDS of AA8050 Composites, a high-intensity peak indicates that the composites have a high rate of Al by weight. In XRD to all appearances, the Al phase encloses the n-Si3N4 particles.