High strain rate properties of Sic/AZ31B nanocomposites

• Main Author: Tham, Jun Hua
• Other Authors: Shu Dong Wei
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/60241
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Magnesium alloy has low density and high specific properties. They are also the lightest metallic structural materials. Therefore, the interest of magnesium alloys for lightweight structure has been increasing over the past ten years. However, there are several disadvantages in using magnesium alloys; this is due to the low ductility property at room temperature and low ultimate strength at elevated temperature. In the recent studies, the used of nano-sized composites has shown significant improvement in the performance of magnesium alloy in both room temperature and elevated temperature. In an effort to provide a more concise study of this magnesium alloy composites, AZ31B fabricated with 0.5% SiC using the ultrasonic method is used in this report. Experiments are carried out under different temperatures and strain rates. The strain rates used in this project are 700/s, 1400/s and 2300/s while the temperatures used are room temperature which is 25 °C, 100 °C and 200 °C. For each condition, 3 results are taken to ensure repeatability. After conducting the experiment, the results are analyzed based on a few important parameters, namely the ultimate compressive strength of the material, engineering yield strength, strain hardening exponent n, strain sensitivity coefficient and energy absorption.