Synergistic effect of Cu on laminated graphene nanosheets/AlCu composites with enhanced mechanical properties.

Abstract Traditional laminated metal matrix composites are confined to two-component system of pure metal matrix and its reinforcement. To achieve further improvement of the applied mechanical properties, in this work, the soft phase of laminated composites was enhanced by alloying with Cu. The synergistic effect of Cu on phases of both soft and hard including in-situ catalyzing and precipitation hardening was firstly explored. The laminated graphene nanosheets (GNSs) /AlCu composites of 2 vol% GNSs, were fabricated by ball milling and hot-rolling processes with much higher mechanical properties. The multi-pass hot rolling provided the solution-precipitation process of Cu transforming into Al 2 Cu and significantly increased the dislocation density of the original soft Al matrix. In addition, the fracture mechanism and fracture model of the laminated GNSs/AlCu composites were also investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]