Abstract
Nanoparticles have great potentials to improve the strength of metal matrix composites, but unfortunately, they tend to grow at high temperatures and are difficult to disperse uniformly with a high content, limiting the improvement in thermal stability and mechanical properties. Here we show the synthesis and performance of Mg–MgO in situ nanocomposites with a fraction of up to 40 vol% MgO nanoparticles. Our synthetic strategies include reactively cryomilling Mg with oxygen and subsequently consolidating the cryomilled powders under a high pressure of 6 GPa. Dispersed MgO nanoparticles with a fine particle size of 7.8 ± 1.7 nm are mainly situated at grain boundaries and exhibit a strong interfacial bonding with Mg matrix. Because of the strong Zener pinning effect of in situ formed MgO nanoparticles, the thermal stability is largely enhanced from ~ 100 °C for nanocrystalline Mg to 400 °C for Mg–10vol%MgO. The high thermal stability of Mg–MgO enables us to consolidate the cryomilled powders at a high temperature of 500 °C under a pressure of 6 GPa and achieve bulk Mg–MgO nanocomposites with a high compressive yield strength: 562 and 688 MPa for Mg–10vol%MgO and Mg–20vol%MgO, respectively. Meanwhile, the room-temperature hardness of the Mg–MgO nanocomposites increases linearly with the content of MgO nanoparticles and reaches 3.65 GPa for Mg–40vol%MgO. Furthermore, the MgO nanoparticles significantly improve the high-temperature hardness of nanocrystalline Mg.
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Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number 11575154) and the High-Level Talents Research Program of the Yanshan University (Grant Number 005000201).
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Cai, X., Xin, S., Sun, B. et al. Thermally stable and strong bulk Mg–MgO in situ nanocomposites by reactive cryomilling and high-pressure consolidation. J Mater Sci 53, 6613–6625 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-018-2041-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-018-2041-x