Comparison of mechanical properties of 2024Al composites strengthened with the carbon fibers and/or ZrC particles

In this work, the ZrC particles and/or Ni-coated carbon fibers-reinforced 2024Al matrix composites are prepared by spark plasm sintering and solution aging treatment, which are denoted as C f (Ni)–ZrC/2024Al, ZrC/2024Al, and C f (Ni)/2024Al composites. It takes 12 h for 2024Al alloy, 10 h for ZrC/2024Al and C f (Ni)/2024Al, and 8 h for C f (Ni)–ZrC/2024Al to reach the peak-aged condition. The increased number of interfaces and the growing dislocations account for the accelerated aging behavior. Among all prepared samples, the C f (Ni)–ZrC/2024Al demonstrates the highest hardness of 139.4 HV, which is 17.8% higher than the 2024Al. The tensile experiments indicate the C f (Ni)–ZrC/2024Al displays the highest yield strength of 350.5 MPa, tensile strength of 536.4 MPa, and strain of 14.8%, which has 56.7%, 45.8%, 52.6% increasements, respectively, over those of 2024Al. The results illustrate that dual reinforcement demonstrates a better strengthening and toughening effect than the monolithic reinforcement. The improvement of strength and strain of C f (Ni)–ZrC/2024Al is contributed to the load transfer effect, dislocation strengthening, grain refinement, and Orowan strengthening.