INVITED: In Situ Processing of Nanoscale Reinforced Composites

A novel in-situ processing, low cost and energy efficient technology for production of lightweight alloys matrix with ceramic particles reinforcements was developed. Successful in-situ formation of Al alloy with ceramic particles (i.e. SiC, TiC, TiN) composites by bubbling reactive gas (i.e. methane, nitrogen, ammonia) into Al alloy and Mg alloy melts was developed. Effect of processing parameters on the formation of AlN and SiC composites was investigated. Kinetic rate equations of in-situ formation of composites were developed. In the in-situ -technology, the reinforcements were directly formed from inexpensive materials through in-situ chemical reactions. This reduced the production costs of composites. Since the size of reinforcing particles ware controlled and also without contamination at the particle surface, the interface properties were improved. In-situ processing of nanomaterials has immense potential over the conventional nanoscale materials due to several advantages such as inherent chemical stability, lack of impurities, and fine dispersion.