Investigation of microstructural, mechanical, and damping properties of B4C reinforced Al 7075 T6 Matrix

The study aims to investigate the effect of increasing the weight percentage of boron carbide (B4C) reinforcement on the mechanical, damping, and microstructural properties of Al7075 T6 matrix material. Weight percentages of 8%, 12%, and 16% are used in this investigation to examine properties such as tensile strength, impact strength, strain hardening, and damping. Storage modulus, damping factor, and loss modulus are investigated over a wide range of temperature variations at a constant frequency (10 Hz). Furthermore, microstructural investigation is carried out using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) to analyse the distribution of reinforcement particles and the elements present in the developed composite material. As the reinforcement (B4C) content increases from 8 to 16 wt%, the yield and UTS values were improved by 5.7% and 4.4%, respectively. Additionally, strength coefficient improves slightly while strain hardening exponent decreases, revealing improved material strength. The results for damping behaviour, such as the damping factor and loss modulus, showed improvement at high temperatures and a decrease at low temperatures with an increase in the weight percentage of B4C. In contrast, the storage modulus improved across the entire temperature range (room temperature to 350°C) with the increase in reinforcement.