Fabrication of Al/Cup composite by accumulative roll bonding process and investigation of mechanical properties

In the present work, accumulative roll bonding (ARB) process was used to produce Al/Cup composite using Al 1100 strips and Cu fine particles. Microstructure and mechanical properties of the composites were studied during various ARB cycles by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), tensile test and the Vickers micro-hardness test. The SEM results revealed that, as the ARB cycle increases the layer of Cu particles is broken which leads to generation of elongated dense Cu clusters. At higher strains, the size of elongated clusters reduces while their uniformity and sphericity increase. This microstructure changes leads to improving the hardness, strength and elongation during ARB process. Generally, the mechanical properties of Al/Cup composite are better than those of pure Al at the same cycle of ARB. The results also demonstrated that, the Cu reinforcement particles in the form of uniformly dispersed clusters improve simultaneously the strength and toughness of Al during the ARB process.