한국주조공학회

Squeeze casting was used for fabricating a light metal base composite having high strength and wearresistance. Reactive sintering was used to prepare the preform of Squeeze casting. To utilize Fe-Al intermetallic compounds and SiC particle as a reinforcement, there needs to prepare Fe-Al mixed powder at 50, 60, 70at.%Al, and add SiC powder to the above mixture at 4, 7, 16, 24wt.%. The prepared mixture with SiC was reactive sintered in a tube furnace at 660℃ to get a porous hybrid preform of intermetallic compound and SiC. The preform prepared above was placed in a metal mold, preheated at 660℃ AC4C matrix was injected into the mold with the temperature of the melt at 610℃ After these processes, 66MPa was applied to the mold for 5 minute to finish the whole procedure. The maximum reaction temperature was increased with the increased Al amount, but decreased with the increased SiC amount. The density of the preform was decreased with SiC amount increase in the compacts due to swelling of the preform. An optical microscope was applied to observe the micro structure and the dispersion of the reinforcements. To analyze phases, We utilized XRD, EDS. Hardness test were chosen to get the information of mechanical properties. There were no significant changes in micro structure between the composite and preform. However, it was shown that uniform dispersion of the reinforcers and complete infiltration of the melt into the preform were achieved through the procedure of the squeeze casting. It was observed that the hardness of the composite is decreased with increased SiC amount, resulting from the volumetric expansion of the preform.