Fabrication and characterisation of alumina/aluminium composite materials with a nacre-like micro-layered architecture

Many natural materials demonstrate ideal design inspirations for the development of lightweight composite with excellent damage tolerance. One notable example is layered architecture nacre, which possesses toughness an order magnitude higher than its constituent parts. Man-made nacre-like ceramic/polymer composites obtained through direct infiltration polymer in ceramic scaffolds have been shown to produce improved mechanical properties over other architectures. Replacing phase metal could provide tolerance but into complex difficult due surface tension molten metal. To address this, bioinspired micro-layered (µL) alumina different fractions from 18 85% were infiltrated aluminium alloy 5083 via pressureless and squeeze casting infiltrations techniques. The created using a bi-directional freeze-casting one-step densification method. As result, µL alumina/aluminium displayed significant extrinsic toughening mechanisms both high strength toughness. performance was highly dependent on interface, microstructure, composition. 18% AlN interface maximum resistance?curve up around 70 MPa.m½ (35 at ASTM limit) flexural 600 MPa.