Thermal conductivity of in-situ dual matrix aluminum composites with segregated morphology

Abstract The dual matrix composites consisting of a reinforcement rich area (RRA) and reinforcement lean area (RLA) were fabricated incorporating in-situ process by powder metallurgy route. The RRA consists of milled Al-Al2O3-M (i.e., M is Al3Ti, Al3Zr or TiB2), and RLA consists of mostly pure unmilled Al. For comparison, composite with single matrix having equivalent content of uniformly distributed reinforcement was also fabricated. The microstructure and thermal conductivity of single and dual matrix composites were compared. The dual matrix composites with the segregated morphology have shown a 2-5 times increase in thermal conductivity than single matrix composite with an equivalent amount of uniformly dispersed reinforcements.