Investigations on properties and microstructure of AlN reinforced AA2017 composites fabricated via stir casting technique

Composite materials tend to play an important role in the automotive, aviation, and military industries due to their greater strength, less weight, and other enriched mechanical characteristics. The present study focused on the mechanical properties of AA2017 matrix composites reinforced with Aluminum Nitride (AlN) particles in various weight proportions, including 0, 5, 10 and 15 wt%, which was synthesized via stir casting route. The microstructure of the proposed composites was examined by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and showed that the AlN particles are uniformly dispersed into the matrix alloy. The properties of proposed composites were evaluated through tensile test, hardness test and impact test and the results are compared with the base AA2017 alloy. The results evident that the inclusion of AlN particles significantly improved the mechanical properties. As a results, the ultimate tensile strength (UTS), elongation, hardness and impact strength were increased in 56%, 51%, 40% and 55%, respectively as compared to the base AA2017 alloy.