Sintering by conventional method of cold pressed aluminum graphene nanoplatelets powders and investigation of their mechanical properties

Powder metallurgy (PM) is defined as a method of making metal and ceramic powders turn into solid and durable parts with the help of high pressure and temperature. In the study conducted in this direction, aluminum and graphene powders were mixed with different combination ratios and sintered by the conventional method. In order to obtain powder mixtures with different combination ratios, it is preferred to use at a rates of 0,1 %, 0,2 %, 0,3 %, 0,4 %, 0,5 %, 0,6 %, 0,8 %, 1 % and 2 % graphene powder was added into the aluminum powder. The powder mixtures were stirred for 2 hours at a speed of 35 rpm in a V-type mixer to obtain a homogeneous dispersion. Powder mixtures were pressed by cold pressing method under pressure of 400 MPa in single axis and single effect pressing device. Sintering was carried out at 620°C for 1 hour under argon gas. The reason why the argon gas is preferred as the sintering atmosphere is that argon gas can form a neutral atmospheric environment. After the production of the test samples, density, surface roughness, weight loss after abrasion and hardness values were determined in order to determine how the graphene increase by weight in aluminum leads to changes in the mechanical properties of the resulting composite together with the sintering parameters. In addition, SEM, EDX and XRD analyzes were performed to see the changes in the microstructures of the test samples and the results obtained were examined.