Process control and mechanical properties of graphene/Al composites based on flaky powder metallurgy

Graphene/Al composites have the characteristics of high strengthening efficiency, synergistic improvement of strong plasticity, and excellent comprehensive performance, which is expected to break through the bottleneck problem of poor strengthplasticity matching of metal matrix composites. However, the dispersion of graphene is an important issue that plagues the preparation of materials. The flaky powder metallurgy technology based on the mechanical ball-milling process can transform the spherical aluminum powder into flakes and realize the uniform dispersion of graphene. In this study, the mechanical ball-milling process was controlled by adding a process control agent(polydimethylsiloxane, PDMS) to prepare flaky Al powder, combined with pressure infiltration technology to prepare 0.6%(mass fraction) GNPs/6061Al composites. The results show that the diameter of flaky aluminum powder increases first and then stabilizes with the prolongation of milling time. As the viscosity of process control agent increases