Molina Jordá, José Miguel, Saravanan, R.A., Arpón Carballo, Roberto, García Cordovilla, C., Louis, Enrique, Narciso, Javier
Pressure infiltration of liquid aluminium into packed SiC particulate with a bimodal size distribution
MOLINA JORDÁ, José Miguel, et al. "Pressure infiltration of liquid aluminium into packed SiC particulate with a bimodal size distribution". Acta Materialia. Vol. 50, Issue 2 (22 Jan. 2002). ISSN 1359-6454, pp. 247-257
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10045/2663
DOI: 10.1016/S1359-6454(01)00348-2
ISSN: 1359-6454
Abstract: 
High volume fraction composites were produced by infiltrating liquid aluminium into preforms made by mixing and
packing SiC particles with average diameters of 170 and 16 μm. The maximum particle volume fraction (0.74) was
attained for a mixture having 67% of coarse particles. The variation of the preform compactness with the percentage
of coarse particles can be reasonably well understood in terms of a simple model. The experimental results indicate
that the threshold pressure is mainly determined by the local compactness of fine particles, a result which is shown to
be compatible with the model used to calculate the particle volume fraction. The permeability of the compacts was
also evaluated by means of pressureless infiltration with an organic liquid (polyethylene glycol) and the results were
compared with those obtained with aluminium. The two data sets qualitatively agree for low percentages of coarse
particles. However, while the permeability obtained with the organic liquid shows a minimum for preforms having the
maximum compactness (roughly half the value obtained for fine particles), in the case of aluminium, the permeability
for that preform (and others having a compactness around the maximum) was significantly higher. This was ascribed
to the pushing of particles during pressurised infiltration of aluminium, triggered by particle segregation.
Keywords:Composites, Pressure infiltration
Elsevier
info:eu-repo/semantics/article