Abstract

Background: The modern Aluminium-Copper-Lithium (Al-Cu-li) based composites have a great demand in aerospace applications due to their lightweight, high strength, high stiffness, and superior mechanical properties.

Objective: The present study explored the effect of reinforcements like graphite and boron carbide on the mechanical behaviour and microstructure of AA2195 composite.

Methods: The Medium Frequency Induction Furnace (MFIF) was used to fabricate the composites with two factors each at four levels ordered in Taguchi L16 orthogonal array.

Results: The microstructures revealed that the reinforcements were distributed uniformly throughout the composite. The elemental investigation observed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) revealed that the formed intermetallic compounds (IMCs) helped in refining the microstructure and further increasing the mechanical properties.

Conclusion: The composite fabricated at 8% boron carbide (B4C) and 6% graphite (Gr) exhibited better ultimate tensile strength, % elongation, and hardness as 190.74 MPa, 0.58, and 87.2VHN, respectively.

Keywords: AA2195 composites, mechanical properties, microstructure, medium frequency induction furnace, taguchi orthogonal array, reinforcements.