Microstructure, cold workability and strain hardening behavior of trimodaled AA 6061–TiO2 nanocomposite prepared by mechanical alloying

In the present work, the improvement of compressive ductility while maintaining high strength and toughness for nanocrystalline materials by cold upsetting (incremental loads) of bulk trimodaled composite was studied. Mechanically alloyed nanocrystalline (NC) AA 6061 alloy powders reinforced with nano TiO2 were blended with 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 wt.% coarse grain (CG) elemental powders related to AA 6061 alloy composition to produce trimodal microstructure. The synthesized composite preforms were characterized by optical microscope, scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscope and X-ray diffraction. The room temperature compressive deformation behavior was evaluated under triaxial stress state condition. With increasing percentage of CG phase in the nanocomposite, the gradual improvement in compressive ductility was observed at the cost of a small amount of strength but it favored the ease of deformation. The 15% CG trimodal composite exhibited an extremely high compressive strength of 935 MPa due to non-coalescence of individual CG particles and effective load transfer occurred in multi scale microstructures. But the 30% CG trimodal composite showed an incremental compressive ductility of around 16% while sacrificing a small amount of strength (845 MPa) and this composite displayed improved toughness (area under true effective stress and true effective strain curve) of over 600% than nanocomposite (0% CG). Also, the percentage cold workability of 30% CG composite was six times higher than that of 0% CG composite. Hence, the 30% CG trimodal composite was observed to be the good one as it exhibited a better strain hardening behavior while maintaining considerable strength and toughness.