Al-Si-SiC composite powders with intra-granular SiC particles were prepared by a gas atomization process.
The composite powders were mixed with Al-Zn-Mg alloy powders as a function of weight percent. Those mixture powderswere compacted with the pressure of 700 MPa and then sintered at the temperature of 565-585oC. T6 heat treatmentwas conducted to increase their mechanical properties by solid-solution precipitates. Each relative densityaccording to the optimized sintering temperature of those powders were determined as 96% at 580oC for Al-Zn-Mgpowders (composition A), 97.9% at 575oC for Al-Zn-Mg powders with 5 wt.% of Al-Si-SiC powders (composition B),and 98.2% at 570oC for Al-Zn-Mg powders with 10 wt.% of Al-Si-SiC powders (composition C), respectively. Eachhardness, tensile strength, and wear resistance test of those sintered samples was conducted. As the content of Al-Si-SiCpowders increased, both hardness and tensile strength were decreased. However, wear resistance was increased by theincrease of Al-Si-SiC powders. From these results, it was confirmed that Al-Si-SiC/Al-Zn-Mg composite could behighly densified by the sintering process, and thus the composite could have high wear resistance and tensile strengthwhen the content of Al-Si-SiC composite powders were optimized.