Journal of

Materials
Processing
Technology
ELSEVIER Journal of Materials ProcessingTechnology60 (1996) 719-722

Production of composites on the base of AICu4 alloy chips

J.Z. Gronostajski, H. Marciniak, A. Matuszak

Institute of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Technical University of Wroctaw, 50-371 Wroctaw, Lukasiewicza 3/5, Poland

Abstract

This paper describes the experience obtained with the chips of AI and its alloy with addition of small amount of tungsten powder
directly converted into the final product by hot extrusion process. The mechanical and physical properties of A1 and AICu4 based
composites are presented. The effect of tungsten contents and heat treatment on the properties is described. Direct conversion method do
not harmfully affect an environment and produced material can be used as a final product or can be further processed by another plastic
working methods like forging or rolling.

Keywords: chips, direct conversion, extrusion, composite, AI, AICu4

I. Introduction amount of tungsten powder. For comparison the composites of

To avoid the troubles deriving from the conventional
recycling process an alternative processes were elaborated where
chips are cut or milled and by plastic working directly converted
into final products [ 1- 4]. The new processes consumes only 5%
of the energy needed for conventional process ofaluminium scrap
and does not harmfully affect the environment.
It has been stated that direct conversion of aluminium and its
alloys chips results in good materials characterised by low
porosity, relative density exceeding 95%, high hardness and
good tensile properties, only slightly lower than those of
metallurgically produced materials.
The correct size and shape of the chips is essential for good
compaction during preliminary pressing operation and further
extrusion. Because the chips, particularly those derived from the
machining operations, are usually characterised by irregular
elongated and spiral shape, a first recycling operation is cutting of
chips in milling process into small, regular shaped particles. It
creates the possibilities not only to get high compaction but to
change the chemical composition of the mixture by an addition of
strengthening particles into aluminium or its alloys chips.
The process can be used for recycling of aluminium chips as
well as for fabrication of composites with better properties than
those of pure aluminium and its alloys.
It has been found, that addition of tungsten powder into
aluminium and AIMg2 alloy chips improves the mechanical and
physical properties of the hot extruded materials like: yield stress,
ultimate tensile strength, hardness and density [5]. Because of too
small amount of alloying elements, the above AIMg2 composites
cannot be strengthened by heat treatment. This is the reason why
chips of AICu4 alloy were used for further investigations. They
can be heat treated by precipitation ageing. The main aim of the
paper is to present the possibilities of fabrication of composites
from AICu4 chips with addition of tungsten powder and to find
how their properties can be changed by heat treatment at different
aluminium with tungsten were also produced.
2. Materials and Processing
The composites were fabricated as strengthened particles
from the granulated chips of AICu4 alloys or aluminium mixture
with tungsten powder of 80 mesh. Chemical composition of
extruded composites is given in Table 1. The granulation of chips
was performed by using cutting speed of 4.6 m/s [6]. Aluminium
chips were cut twice according to their high plasticity and chips
of AICu4 alloy were cut once. Chips smaller than 4 mm were
applied for further processing. Such prepared chips with different
amount of tungsten powder were mechanically alloyed during 2
hours for aluminium and 3 hours for A1Cu4 alloy.
After mechanical alloying such prepared mixtures were
preliminary pressed applying the pressure of 210 MPa and then
hot extruded at 500°C with extrusion coefficient ~, = 4 (~,=ds/df)2
and extrusion rate of 10-z m/s. Such low extrusion rate makes
possible formation of good diffusion bonds between chips and
tungsten powder and enables the plastic flow of matrix, materials
into pores and holes. After extrusion the following physical and
mechanical properties were studied: density, hardness (HB), yield
and ultimate tensile strength, elongation reduction in area and
structure. The effect of ageing time at 170°C on the same
properties of AICu4 based composites after solution treatment at
510°C during 1 hour was studied. All the properties were
investigated at ambient temperature.
Yield, ultimate tensile strength, elongation and reduction in
area were investigated using the round samples of 8 mm diameter
and base length of 40 mm. The structures were studied by using
optical and scanning microscope.

0924-0136/96/$15.00 © 1996 Elsevier ScienceS.A. All rights reserved

PI10924-0136 (96) 02410-7
720 J.Z Gronostajski et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 60 (1996) 719-722

Table 1.
Chemical composition of composites

Materials Chemical composition, %

Mn M~ Cu W
AIW0 0.00
A1W0.3 - - 0.30
AIW0.6 0.60
AlW0.75 - 0.75
AICu4W0 0.63 0.68 4.32 0.00
AICu4W0.6 0.58 0.74 4.09 0.62
AICu4W0.8 0.72 0.61 4.18 0.80
AICu4W1.6 0.69 0.64 4.27 1.60

3. Results and Discussion while the further increase of tungsten does not change the
hardness of AICu4 alloy.
After the mechanical alloying the mixtures showed low Brinell hardness of both kind of extruded composites is only
density of 1.1-1.5 g/cm3, and to make them more convenient for slightly higher than that of metallurgically produced materials.
hot extrusion preliminary pressing under 210 MPa was applied. Such small increase of hardness can be due to too small amount
of tungsten powder, heterogeneity of tungsten powder
The increase of density to about 2.2 g/cm 3 was obtained by that distribution, residual porosity of extruded composites and regions
operation. without diffusion bonds. Regions with residual porosity are rarely
Significant rearrangement of aluminium particles and visible after hot extrusion, so the changes of hardness is more
tungsten powder resulting in mechanical bonds between them affected by lack of diffusion bonds than by residual porosity.
were observed during pressing operation. Finally, hot extrusion
process resulted in densities exceeding 98% of theoretical density
of metallurgically produced aluminium and AICu4 alloy with
adequate addition of tungsten. 25 100
70 100
20 --'- 98
60 ~ -- ~ A 99 o~ -

50 98 15 ~ 96 ~
,5
O
40 [ 97 '~ 10 ~ : 94 ~,
30 -O- 96 --O-- Elongation
r
~D
'4 5 - ~Redue. area 92
20~ ~ 0 95 ---2k--Relat. density
m __~ ---O--Elong. ~ o 1 I I 90
l0 --"0--- Redue. Area 94
~ Relat. density 0 0.4 0.8 1.2 1.6
0 i 1 93
Content of tungsten W [%]
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
Content of tungsten [%] Fig. 2 Effect of tungsten contents on the relative density,
elongation and reduction in area of A1Cu4-based composites
Fig. 1 Effect of tungsten contents on the relative density,
elongation and reduction in area of AI-based composites
loo o 50
The effect of tungsten contents on the density of AI based
80 40
composites is shown in Fig. 1 and of AICu4 based composites in
Fig. 2. It can be seen from these figures, that relative density of
the extruded AICu4-based composites is slightly lower than the m - " ¢ __~ 30
relative density of Al-based composites, The density of both >" 40 20 ~
kinds of composites slightly decreases with an increase of
tungsten contents. Such a change of relative density is caused by
worse plastic flow properties of AICu4 alloy than of pure
t ,o

aluminium and by a restrain of plastic flow of matrix materials 0 [ 0

into pores and holes with increasing amount of tungsten particles. 0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8
The effect of tungsten contents on the Brinell hardness of Content of tungsten W [%]
both kinds of composites is shown in Figs. 3 and 4. It can be seen
Fig. 3 Effect of tungsten contents on the hardness (HB), yield
from the figures that addition of tungsten up to 0.6%W to pure
strength (YS) and ultimate tensile strength (ITTS) of Al-based
aluminium and A1Cu4 alloy causes small increase of hardness,
composites
 J. Z Gronostajski et al. / Journal o f Materials Processing Technology 60 (1996) 719- 722 721

400 140 14

105 ~ ,-, 1 2 ~
300
~ 10
200 70 ~

100

0
--]
/
--o--YS
--~-HB
--t~--UTS
P
J
I I I o ~ 4
0 0,4 0 ,g 1,2 1,6 o
2 l- - g ~ E l o n g . ~Reduc. area

Content of tungsten W [%]

Fig. 4. Effect of tungsten contents on the hardness (HB), yield
I
0 3 6 9 12
strength (YS) and ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of AlCu4-based
composites Ageing time [h]

The effect of tungsten on the yield and ultimate tensile Fig. 6. Effect of ageing time on elongation and reduction in
strength of composites is shown in Figs 3 - 4. The yield and area of heat treated AICu4-based composites with contents 0.8%
ultimate tensile strength slightly increase with contents of
tungsten in both kinds of composites. The increase of tungsten
contents causes the decrease of elongation and reduction in area
of both kinds of composites, but the decrease is higher in A1Cu4 ,50 350
based composites than in Al-based composites (Figs. 1 -2). The
yield, ultimate tensile strength, elongation and reduction in area
of composite materials are not significantly different than those of 130 ~ l ~ 250 ~__~
metallurgically produced materials. On the one hand the tungsten
particles and aluminium oxides lead to an increase of the yield ~ 120 200
and tensile strength and to a decrease of the plastic properties of
composites by hardening effect. In the same time the tungsten 110 150
leads to a decrease of density by restriction of matrix flow into
pores and that way it has a contrary effect on the above 100 100
mentioned properties of both kinds of composites. 0 3 6 9 12
The effect of heat treatment on the changes of mechanical
properties of the A1Cu4-based composite with 0.8% W is shown Ageing time [hi
in Figs. 5 and 6. It can be seen, that with the from these figures
ageing time to about 8 hours there is a decrease of elongation and Fig. 7. Effect of ageing time on the mechanical properties of
reduction in area and an increase of yield stress, ultimate tensile AICu4 composite
strength and hardness. But the yield stress and ultimate tensile
strength reach their maximum values at slightly shorter time (6
hours). Comparing the effect of similar heat treatment of AICu4- 20 100
based composite without tungsten contents [7] (Fig. 7 - 8) with
the above described it can be stated, that the course of ageing
process in both materials is similar, but the values of yield stress,
ultimate tensile strength and hardness are higher in composite
then those in pure A1Cu4 alloy. The opposite tendency is 14 70
observed for the values of plastic properties of both kinds of
composites.
m 12--~--I:].--Elong. ~l-l~da~HB~ - 60
500 180
l0 ~ i i 50
150
~ 400

300
120
0 3
Ageing
6
time [h]
9 12

90 Fig. 8. Effect of ageing time on the elongation and hardness (HB)

200 of AICu4 alloy
60

;~ 100 ~[----O~YS ~ U T S ~HB[ 30

0 i I i 0 The surface of recycled extruded bars has relatively good
0 3 6 9 12 quality, what is of big importance for practical applications of
these materials.
Ageing time [h] Observation of structures (Fig. 9) and tensile fractures (Fig.
Fig. 5. Effect of ageing time on the mechanical properties of I 0) revealed relativity good strength of the diffusion bonds and
heat treated AICu4-based composites with contents 0.8% W typical features of plastic fractures.
722 J.Z Gronostajski et aL / dournal of Materials Processing Technology 60 (1996) 719-722
Fig. 9. Distribution of tungsten particles and small pores in
AICu4 matrix in composites containing 1.6 % W
Fig. 10. Fracture surface of AlCu4-base composite containing
O.62 % W
4. C o n c l u s i o n s
Production of composites by direct conversion of A1 and
A1Cu4-alloy granulated chips with tungsten powder into final
products by hot extrusion results in materials characterised by
low porosity and relative density exceeding 98%. Good diffusion
bonds and very low porosity of extruded composites are due to:
- high extrusion temperature which enables the plastic flow of
an extremely plastic matrix into pores and voids,
- relatively low extrusion rates which extend the time of
plastic flow of the matrix material into pores and time of
diffusion transport as well.
Hardness and mechanical properties of A1 and AlCu4-based
composites with tungsten are not significantly different than those
of metallurgically produced materials, what is mainly due to the
opposite effect of addition of tungsten on the density and
hardening.
Heat treatment of A1 and AICu4-base composites with
tungsten causes the increase of the strength and decreases plastic
properties of composites.
Surfaces of recycled AI and AICu4-based composites with
tungsten are of good quality and pores are not visible with naked
eye what is impoi'tant for practical applications. The elements
produced from metallurgical A1 and A1 alloys can be
manufactured from AI and AICu4-based composites produced by
direct conversion of chips.
Direct conversion method do not harmfully affects the
environment and produced material can be further processed by
another plastic working methods like forging or rolling.
References
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